


The Vampire From Another World!

by steeleye



Series: It's Grim Up North. [8]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Thing From Another World (movie)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/F, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6870457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘The Thing From Another World’ movie xover. A Grim Up North Story. It creeps, it crawls, it strikes without warning…it’s also orange and full of vitamins! While Dawn and Faith struggle to save the world from an alien vegetable menace, Buffy sinks further into alcoholism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Vampire From Another World!

By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the movie ‘The Thing From Another World’. I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** The Thing From Another World.

 **Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious UK-English which is different to US-English.

 **Timeline:** Set a few weeks after ‘The Torquay Frog Mystery’.

 **Words:** 10 Chapters of 2500+ words.

 **Warnings:** None.

**Summary:** ‘The Thing From Another World’ movie xover. A Grim Up North Story. It creeps, it crawls, it strikes without warning…it’s also orange and full of vitamins! While Dawn and Faith struggle to save the world from an alien vegetable menace, Buffy sinks further into alcoholism. 

****

0=0=0=0

**Slayer Central, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Cleveland, England, Summer 2004.**

A gentle breeze blew in off the North Sea; Dawn sat in the passenger seat of Faith’s beat-up old Land Rover as the wind made ripples in the grass. Watching the daisies and buttercups nod and sway in the sun, she wondered if she’d get to see her sister today. Ever since that fateful day when Buffy had burst into her bedroom and found her in bed with Faith, her sister had been avoiding her.

A minibus pulled up on the gravel parking lot outside the long green wooden hut that housed Slayer Central. Dawn turned her head towards this unlikely nerve centre of the not quite worldwide slayer organization. Distracted from her thoughts, she watched as nine or ten young slayers climbed from the bus. She speculated idly on where they’d come from and how their lives had changed since Willow had cast her spell. Could it really have been only eighteen months ago?

Smiling to herself Dawn watched as the girls pulled bags and suitcases from the back of the minibus. Once unloaded they milled about unsure of what they should do next. The door of a hut on the other side of the parking lot (Dawn told herself she really ought to call it a ‘car park’ here in England) opened and Maggie McBride, the senior slayer instructor, marched across the ‘car park’ to where the girls stood in an uncertain huddle.

Getting the girls into one untidy line, Maggie walked slowly up and down the line shaking her head in faux sorrow. Dawn imagined what she’d be saying right about now; ‘I asked for a few good slayers’, she’d say, ‘and this is what they send me!’ Maggie took up position about two yards in front of the ragged line of girls and stood ramrod straight, her little stick thing stuck under her right arm and her big, black boots so highly polished the sun reflected off them enough to dazzle you.

“My name is McBride!” Maggie’s voice drifted to Dawn on the breeze, “Staff McBride, I make slayers of little girls like you!”

Grinning to herself as Maggie ‘marched’ the new girls away; Dawn thanked whatever gods there might be that she wasn’t a young slayer and wasn’t about to do two weeks of intensive slayer training with the senior instructor. Maggie was very good at her job; she loved all the girls that came to her for training and that was why she was so hard on them. She didn’t want to see any of them die; ‘train hard, fight easy’, she would often say.

The driver’s door opened and Faith stuck her head into the vehicle.

“Buffy?” Dawn asked hopefully.

“Sorry kid,” Faith shrugged her shoulders; oddly Dawn didn’t mind Faith calling her ‘kid’, “she’s either out or asleep. Whatever, I knocked on her door for five minutes and she didn’t answer.”

“Sleeping it off more like,” Dawn replied miserably as she climbed out of the Rover.

Ever since finding out that Dawn and Faith were more than just friends or work colleagues, Buffy had been drinking heavily. Which was odd considering Buffy’s previous attitude to booze; Dawn could remember how her mother had been known to take a drink or two at times of stress. Maybe this was the same sort of thing.

“Come on,” Faith walked around the Rover and held out her hand to Dawn, “we better go see what Book-man and Wicca-girl want.”

“Nah,” Dawn pulled a face at Faith’s ‘Super’ nicknames for Giles and Willow, “sorry doesn’t work for me,” Dawn hesitated for a moment, “but on second thoughts ‘Wicca-girl’s’ not so bad for Willow.” Dawn grinned, “I still like Super-Librarian’.”

“Just so long as ya don’t forget and say it to their faces,” Faith smiled as she took Dawn’s hand and they walked over to the hut.

The Slayer Organisation (it was called that because no one could be bothered to think up a better name) was housed in an old holiday camp near Saltburn-by-the-Sea in Cleveland which is a county in Northern England. They’d bought the place after they’d moved from the States back in ’03. After a wobbly beginning the Organisation was getting…well, organised, having had a lot of the camp’s facilities converted to their needs; they were able to bring in girls from around the world for two or three weeks of basic slayer training. After this the girls could and did come back for specialist training courses. Things were really looking up and one day (say, some time in the next fifty years or so) they might just have an organisation that was truly worldwide and…well…organised.

Pushing open the door to the HQ hut, a long single story building which was surprisingly snug in the winter (about eight months of the year here in Cleveland), Dawn walked up to the girl sitting behind the reception desk.

“Hi!” Dawn called, all the time thinking, ‘We have a receptionist, we must be getting good!’ “Where are Mr Giles and Miss Rosenberg?”

“Good morning Miss Summers,” the girl looked up from her computer screen, she nodded in Faith’s direction, “Miss Lehane; they’re both in the conference room.”

“Thanks,” Dawn’s cheerful reply denied her disappointment at not seeing her sister.

Leading the way, Dawn headed off down a long narrow corridor that ran the length of the building. Glancing out of one of the windows she saw Maggie running the new recruits (luggage and all) to their accommodation. No time to waste, Dawn thought, Maggie only had them for two weeks. Coming to the door of the conference room, Dawn walked in without knocking with Faith hard on her heels.

“Hi guys!” Dawn called, happy to see her old friends; Faith’s greeting was only slightly more restrained.

“Hi Dawnie!” Willow bounced across the room to give Dawn a big hug; hesitating for only a fraction of a second she turned to Faith and gave her an only marginally less enthusiastic hug.

Standing at the head of the conference table, Giles didn’t hug anyone; he coughed quietly into his fist and then gestured to the seats around the long, pine table.

“If everyone would like to sit down,” Giles said calmly, “we can start the briefing.”

Slumping into a chair next to Dawn, Faith glanced around the room, she could smell the newness of the place. The new furniture, the carpets even the wallpaper, she smiled to herself when she saw all the new electronic gizmo’s and wondered who’d been behind having those installed, she doubted that it was Giles. And what was it with Willow acting all ‘long lost buddies’ with her?

They had history between them, none of it that good. But they’d learnt to live with it, even act like they were sorta friends but the plain fact was, Faith had punched Willow…hard; she could’ve easily have killed the witch. Things like that couldn’t just be forgotten and then there was all the murder and trying to kill the red head’s best friend. Her changed attitude must be something to do with joining the ranks of the lesbian sisterhood…whatever, Faith sighed to herself. It made Dawn happy to see them getting on, so she’d go along with it.

“Where’s Buffy?” Dawn asked before Giles could begin his ‘lecture’.

“I’m afraid,” Giles glanced at Faith before he looked at Dawn, “Buffy’s unavailable at the moment.”

“Drunk more like,” Dawn sulked.

“Dawn!” Willow turned towards the younger woman and gestured vaguely in Faith’s direction, “Finding you together like that,” Willow hesitated choosing her words carefully, “she’s still trying to come to terms with it.”

Shaking her head, Faith smiled and wondered if Buffy ever realised just how loyal Willow was to her, probably not, she told herself.

“If I might begin?” Giles asked a little testily; he fiddled with the remote control for a moment, got nowhere, made his famous ‘annoyed clucking’ sound and handed it to Willow.

Pressing a few buttons, Willow got the curtains to close, the lights to dim and a projector to project a map of Scotland onto the screen at the end of the room where Giles stood. Faith felt a shiver run down her spine, Scotland…again? What was wrong with the place? Kennedy and Willow had almost been eaten by wild Haggises up there. Dawn and herself had nearly been killed by human-demon hybrids only a few weeks ago. Just what was it with the joint? It seemed like every few days they’d get reports of something weird going on up there.

“Two days ago,” Giles began as he picked up a long slim pointer, “a large metallic object crashed into a lake near RAF Gloup on the island of Yell in the Shetlands,” he pointed to a group of islands to the north-east of Scotland.

“Hold on!” Dawn looked up and down the table, “This is some sorta joke right? Nowhere has names like that.”

“I’m sorry, Dawn,” you could tell by the tone of his voice that Giles wasn’t in the least bit sorry, “but they’re all quite genuine place names, now if I might be allowed to continue?”

Dawn reluctantly nodded her head.

“Now a military contact of mine,” Giles continued, “has reported that the RAF are going to try and recover this ‘object’ and are gathering a group of scientists and other experts together to help.”

“So we’re thinking evil, alien, space bats?” Dawn smiled eagerly.

“Um, yes something like that,” Giles announced without a flicker of a smile. “The object that crashed into the lake was definitely some sort of craft not a natural phenomenon. It decelerated as it approached the island, we think it must have been damaged as it came into land.”

“What about this RAF place?” Faith wanted to know.

“Yes,” Giles nodded to Willow who did something with the remote, a large aerial photo-map of a desolate heather covered island sprang into view on the screen. 

If you looked carefully you could just make out a small huddle of wooden huts not unlike the ones that made up Slayer Central. 

“Impressive…not!” Dawn commented, “Like, where’s the runways and the fighter jets?”

“No fighter jets I’m afraid Dawn,” Giles smiled indulgently, “RAF Gloup is a small weather and research station, its also used to run survival courses for aircrew.”

“Would you want to survive if ya got lost in a dump like that?” Faith wanted to know.

“That’s as maybe,” Giles ploughed on through the interruptions. “Since the arrival of the object the RAF have moved in a small security detail…the place is so remote there’s little chance of it being overrun by sightseers or the press. They’ve also invited several universities to send small research teams in to help investigate the object. Of course it’s all very hush-hush and the media has been told that it’s just a normal meteor that crashed and the scientists are there to study the effects on the local ecology.” Giles sighed, “Surprisingly the media have swallowed the story and are anyway more interested in the latest series of that tawdry, talent-less show on TV.”

Again with the annoyed clucking sound.

“So ya want Dawnie an’ me to go poke ‘round up there?” Faith asked slowly.

“That’s the general idea,” Giles agreed.

“What’s our cover going to be?” Dawn wanted to know. “Like, the last time we pretended to be students, that totally didn’t work!”

“Yes well,” Giles moved towards a chair and sat down, “Willow’s been working on that,” with a gesture, Giles invited Willow to continue; Willow stood up and took Giles’ place at the head of the table.

“The main problem we have,” Willow began, “is that all of our most experienced operatives,” she smiled at her use of the word ‘operatives’ thinking how it made them sound like spies, “look too young, but, I’ve been working on this.”

Picking up a big, brown envelope, Willow reached inside and took out two, clear, plastic zip-lock bags, she passed them over to Dawn and Faith with an instruction not to open them just yet. Dawn examined the contents of her bag; it looked like some sort of class ring. Squinting through the plastic Dawn caught sight of the year engraved on the ring, it said ‘Langley 2001’. Looking at the ring given to Faith she saw it said ‘1997’.

“I don’t think these are going to fool anyone into thinking we’re older than we are,” she pointed out.

“That’s coz you’re not wearing them yet,” Willow pointed out.

Dawn and Faith exchanged suspicious glances.

“Like, that’s one element of your cover,” Willow announced, “the other is that the UK government invited the US government to send a couple of observers.”

“Let me guess,” Faith looked at Willow as if she’d gone slightly insane, “we’re gonna be the observers? Y’know that’s actually worse than pretending to be students?”

“Hey!” Willow frowned, “Don’t pooh-pooh the idea until you’ve heard it all.”

“Yeah, okay,” Faith sighed disbelievingly quite convinced she would end up in jail sometime soon, this time for spying.

“I worked all day yesterday setting this up,” Willow explained, “it helped that this place you’re going to is so out of the way its hard for anyone to check up on anything, even,” she said before Dawn could butt in, “with military communications. When you present your documents at this RAF place you’ll be believed…and you _must_ present you documents for this to work properly…”

“Let me point out,” Giles spoke up from his chair, “that this is all highly illegal and involved the casting of a number of spells that I don’t think I quite approve of.”

“Oh, stop worrying,” Willow sent Giles an annoyed glance, “everything’ll work out fine.”

Dawn felt her heart sink to her boots at Willow’s words.

“Okay then,” Dawn sighed heavily dreading what Willow would say next, “What’s our cover?”

“Here,” Willow handed over two slim files, “those are your ‘legends’.”

“Legends?” Faith looked at Dawn hoping for clarification.

“Its spy talk for our cover stories,” Dawn took her file and opened it.

“You’ll need to read and remember them in case anyone asks about your past,” Willow looked at Faith and remembered her dislike of reading let alone remembering things. “Or you could just tell anyone that asks you that your past is ‘classified’.”

“So we’re gonna be spies?” Faith didn’t even bother to open her file, “Cool,” she added with a lazy smile.

“Sort of,” Willow admitted, she took a deep breath, “now I want you to put on your rings.”

Taking the ring out of its bag, Faith took a moment to study it; it was chunky, covered in engraving and had a small red stone of some sort set in its middle. A typical ‘class ring’ from this Langley academy place, whatever that was. Slipping it on her finger she found it was too big, just as she was about to point this out she felt the ring tighten on her finger. A little concerned she turned to Dawn only to see her girlfriend’s face slowly change.

“Hey! What’s…” the words died on Faith’s tongue, she glared at Willow, “This better be reversible.”

“It is!” Willow replied quickly, “It’s really just a kinda reverse glamour spell. While you’re wearing those rings you’ll look ten years older.”

Feeling her face, Faith detected some minor changes, she looked at Dawn, the girl looked like a young woman in her late twenties and if anything sexier than she had before. Faith wondered what an early thirties version of herself looked like. At least Dawn hadn’t screamed when she’d looked at her.

“So-so what happens if we take the rings off?” Dawn wanted to know.

“You can’t,” Willow explained, “only Giles and myself can do that, we thought it’d be safer that way.”

“Whatever,” Dawn looked at the ring, she was dying to see what she looked like, she needed a mirror, fast! “So why do we need to look older?”

“Well,” Willow laughed nervously, “no ones gonna believe, like, an eighteen year old CIA agent!”

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

2.

The Aberdeen to Lerwick ferry climbed up one side of the wave; paused for a moment on the crest and then slid into the trough beyond. Although the sky was a bright, clear blue a gale blew out of the north causing the ferry to rise and fall on the waves whipped up by the wind. In contrast to the clear blue sky, Dawn was turning a deeper shade of green as she held on to the hand rail and hung her head over the side of the ship.

“Buffy hates me,” she groaned as Faith came to stand beside her, “Giles hates me too.”

“No they don’t,” Faith rubbed her back reassuringly.

“Then why did the send me out here to die?” Dawn retched over the side, nothing came up, there was nothing left in her stomach.

“Oranges,” came Faith’s surreal reply.

“Okay, I’ll bite, explain?” Intrigued, Dawn stopped trying to vomit and turned to look at her girlfriend.

“You know marmalade?” Faith gazed unconcerned by seasickness towards the horizon.

“Uh-huh,” Dawn grunted. 

“It’s a corruption of the French for, ‘Ma’am’s ill’, right?” Faith looked down at Dawn and gave her a bright smile.

“This is all stuff you’ve been reading isn’t it?” Dawn tried to stand up straight and pay attention; Faith had recently started a program of ‘self-improvement’ and was likely to come out with odd pieces of information like this at the strangest of times.

“Yeah,” Faith watched a seabird as it kept station with the ferry; if she had something to throw she bet herself that she could hit it easily.

“Oranges?” Dawn was curious enough now so that she’d forgotten her seasickness, for the time being at least.

“Oh yeah.” Faith turned to give Dawn her full attention, “Yeah its all something to do with Mary Queen of Scots or something. So, like oranges are supposed to be good for seasickness.”

“They are?” Dawn said with renewed hope.

“Yeah,” Faith nodded her head authoritatively, “and if they don’t work…they taste the same coming up as they do going down!”

“Bitch!” Dawn groaned, turned an even deeper shade of green and hung her head over the rail once more.

0=0=0=0

After leaving Slayer Central the two young women (who now looked ten years older than they had earlier that morning) had returned to their flat to pack for their trip to the Shetland Isles. Next they’d been driven by Giles to Middlesbrough Airport where they’d caught an aircraft to Aberdeen in Scotland. Here they’d been in time to catch the evening sailing to Lerwick. The trip would take them twelve hours, Dawn had phoned Giles to complain about the amount of time they were taking to get to their destination. Giles had reassured her and told her not to worry and to use the time to memorise their cover stories. It was only when the two women were in their tiny cabin and the ferry had got out of the shelter of land that Dawn discovered the ‘joys’ of seasickness.

Eventually, as all things do, Dawn’s torment stopped as soon as the ship got into the lee of Mainland, the biggest of the Shetland islands. After disembarking in Lerwick, Faith and Dawn took a taxi to the town’s airfield. Field being the right word for it. The little airport consisted of a long, mostly flat field, a control tower, a hut that served as a passenger terminal and sheep that had to be chased off the runway before the twin engined aircraft could take off. The next leg of their journey took them to Fetlar, about forty miles to the north of Lerwick. Here the airport was even more primitive than the one at Lerwick; there was no control tower or terminal hut. There was just a long bumpy field a wind sock and more sheep.

Standing on the edge of the field as they watched the aircraft take off and fly off into the distance, Dawn and Faith wondered what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to go. Looking around, Faith saw a low hill to their north and some white painted thatched cottages to the south. The field was surrounded by a dry stone wall as were several other fields she could see. The wind whistled in off the sea blowing the grass flat and making the gorse bushes sway, there wasn’t a tree to be seen anywhere.

“What do we do now?” Faith called over the wind.

“Hey, look!” Dawn nudged her friend and pointed drawing Faith’s attention to the green military Land Rover that bounced across the field towards them.

“Maybe this is our ride?” Faith smiled hopefully at Dawn.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dawn watched as the vehicle came to a halt about thirty yards away.

The passenger door opened and a young man dressed in a camouflage uniform and a blue-grey beret climbed out and started to walk towards them. The man was about six feet tall had short dark brown hair and looked very fit. Around his waist was a web belt which carried a pistol holster on his right hip. There were some sort of markings on his epilates and his beret had a gold coloured metal badge.

As the young man got closer, Faith saw that he was fairly attractive, not that she was bothered about that sort of thing now she was with Dawn. The badge on his beret said ‘RAF’ and he had the words ‘RAF Regiment’ stitched in white on a blue-grey piece of cloth just above the Union Flag on his shoulder. The young man stopped about four feet away, smiled pleasantly and gave them a casual salute.

“Pilot Officer Ken McPherson,” he introduced himself, “you must be the spooks sent from the States.”

“Spooks?” Dawn queried, she might feel like death warmed up but she was fairly certain that she was still breathing.

“Sorry,” the officer gave an amused chuckle, “I meant ‘spies’.”

“Yeah, like we’re from the CIA,” Dawn tried to sound professional like she thought a ‘spy’ should.

Pulling her wallet from the pocket of her jacket, Dawn showed the RAF man her ID card, Faith followed suit. The Pilot Officer seemed happy with their identities, as well he might. The ID cards were very good forgeries, the Slayer Organisation had contacts on both sides of the law. Gesturing to the Land Rover, McPherson led the way to the vehicle. Throwing their bags into the back the two women climbed in after them and sat down on the hard seats as McPherson climbed into the front next to the driver.

“Alright, Stevenson, you can take us back to the ferry,” McPherson ordered in a casual tone.

“Ferry?” Dawn let the fear of another bout of seasickness creep into her voice.

“’Fraid so,” McPherson turned in his seat to look at the two women, “there’s a half hour ferry trip to Yell. Bad crossing, was it?”

“You wouldn’t believe,” Dawn sighed resigning herself to throwing up the light meal she’d had earlier.

“Oh, it won’t be so bad,” McPherson turned to look out of the windscreen, “it’s all fairly sheltered ‘round here…hardly any waves at all.”

“Oh, good,” Dawn looked miserably out of the back of the Land Rover.

“So,” Faith called, “what can ya tell us about this ‘object’ thing?”

“Not a lot,” admitted McPherson, “first, no ones actually got too close to it just yet. Secondly if I did know anything I couldn’t tell you until your ID’s have been checked out.”

“But!?” Dawn looked at Faith in worry.

“Sorry,” McPherson seemed to apologies a lot, “but the C/O needs to check you out, then if you are who you claim to be everything will be fine. If not, well you’ll be in just the right place to be arrested and locked up…ID’s can be forged you know?”

“Yeah right,” Faith glanced at Dawn; she didn’t like the idea of being ‘checked out’ by this Cee-Oh guy, whoever he was.

After a ten minute ride the Land Rover drove down a concrete slip way and up a ramp onto a small vehicle ferry. After a wait of no more than a couple of minutes the vessel cast off and chugged into the channel heading for the island of Yell. The island looked like a larger copy of the one they’d just left. There were some hills to the south while the rest of the island was covered in rolling, heather covered, desolate looking wilderness. On the shore line they could see a scattering of isolated cottages. The ferry appeared to be heading towards a small hamlet of grey stone buildings. Although the sea between the islands was almost flat calm, Dawn was beginning to look decidedly ill again. Faith searched her mind for something that would take Dawn’s mind off her stomach.

“There’s ponies,” Faith finally blurted out.

“Huh?” Dawn turned and looked into Faith’s eyes, a puzzled frown on her face, “Ponies?”

“Yeah,” Faith nodded her head eagerly, “Shetland Ponies, they’re cute and small and they were brought here by the Vikings a thousand years ago.”

“Faith, are you feeling okay?” Dawn asked just a little concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Faith’s face fell a little, “I was just trying to keep ya mind off the seasickness, okay?”

“Thanks,” Dawn rested her back against the side of the Land Rover, “I think I’ll be okay now.”

With a jolt the ferry came to a halt against the slipway at Gutcher the biggest settlement on Yell. The driver started up the engine and drove the vehicle off the ferry and through the deserted street that made up the hamlet.

“Where is everyone?” Dawn called from the back of the Rover.

“We had the north of the island evacuated,” McPherson called back; “there’s less than two hundred people up here, didn’t take long.”

As they were driven north the road became rougher and rougher until it was little more than a muddy track. After about a five or six mile drive that had completely numbed Faith and Dawn’s butts, they came to the three or four cottages that made up the settlement of Gloup. Here they were stopped by a couple of guys in camouflage uniforms carrying the odd looking rifles that the British military used. They exchanged a few words with McPherson before waving them through. Surprisingly the road got better as they drove around the inlet that separated the settlement of Gloup from RAF Gloup. As the Rover crunched its way along the gravel track towards the base, Faith and Dawn looked out of the windscreen to get their first glimpse of RAF Gloup.

Although there was a complete lack of runways or fast jets, in fact the base was strangely aircraft free for somewhere owned by the Royal Air Force, it wasn’t as bad as either of the women had feared. The buildings looked fairly modern; they were single story prefabricated huts, each hut connected to its neighbour by an enclosed passageway. There were maybe twenty huts of various sizes. There were also some tents on the grass that surrounded the huts. Which was in turn surrounded by a fence probably designed to keep the sheep out as it didn’t look like a particularly formidable obstacle to a human. There was even what looked like a helicopter landing pad and a small control tower.

“I hope we won’t be sleeping in tents,” Faith commented with only a little menace in her voice.

“Oh don’t worry about the accommodation,” McPherson called out as they drove up to what could laughingly be called the main gate; he flashed an ID card to the armed man at the gate and they drove on through. “It’s a bit basic but its comfy enough, as long as you don’t mind sharing.”

“No!” Dawn said quickly casting Faith an amused glance, “We don’t mind sharing.”

The Land Rover stopped and dropped off its passengers in front of what turned out to be the administration block. Following McPherson into the building, Faith and Dawn dumped their bags in the entrance lobby. The RAF officer had been right; the place did look a little basic, but no worse than any other military base on the edge of nowhere. There was light, heat and it was dry and wind-proof. Their feet thumped on the lino covered wooden floor as McPherson led the way down corridors lit by fluorescent tubes.

“Here we are,” he stopped in front of a door, “the C/O will want to check your documents before we settle you in.”

The young officer knocked on the door and opened it to the sound of a muffled ‘Come’ from inside.

“The two CIA operatives, sir,” he announced as he shepherded Faith and Dawn into the office where another slightly older officer sat behind a desk typing on a computer.

“Ah!” the officer smiled and stood up, he held out his hand, “Flight Lieutenant Hendry, you must be Agents Summers and Lehane.” The three shook hands, “Now,” the officer gestured to the visitor’s chairs in front of his desk, “if I can see your authorisation we’ll see if I need to have you thrown into the guard house.”

Expecting this, Dawn already had the document out and ready to give to the base’s commanding officer.

“If you’d wait outside Ken,” Hendry looked at McPherson and the latter left the room and closed the door behind him. “Tedious all this security,” muttered Hendry as he opened the envelope and took out the document inside, “but I’m sure you understand,” he unfolded the sheets of paper. “I don’t know what we’d do with you if you were Russians or something; we’ve not actually got a guardhouse.”

As Hendry read the documents given to him by Dawn, his eyes became unfocused for about thirty second or so. Dawn glanced at Faith and raised an eyebrow, this was probably what Willow had meant when she’d said that they _had_ to show their documentation on arrival at the base.

“Yes!” Hendry blinked his eyes a couple of times before folding up the document and handing it back to Dawn, “That all looks perfectly in order. I expect you’d like to get settled in. We’ve got showers and hot water all the comforts of home; plus the canteen’s open all day so you can have a meal if you want.” He stood up and gestured to the door, “Ken!” he called out, “Mr McPherson will get you settled in,” Hendry seemed to be in a hurry to get them out of his office; Dawn for one wasn’t going to argue.

The younger officer came into the office.

“Ah, Ken,” Hendry gestured to Dawn and Faith, “show these ladies their room, would you?” You could almost hear the sigh of relief as the door closed behind them.

After a hike through long brightly lit corridors, Faith and Dawn were eventually shown into a small room with two beds, two wardrobes a wash basin and mirror. The double glazed window looked out onto the blank wall of the hut next to the one they were in. They’d both been given a map of the base and told that Flt Lt Hendry would be giving a briefing at nineteen-hundred hours that evening.

“When’s nineteen-hundred hours?” Faith wanted to know as she closed the curtain.

“That’s seven o’clock,” Dawn sat down on her bed and sighed with relief, it was nice to sit on something soft again. “We’ve got four hours to kill between then and now.”

“Cool,” Faith grinned lasciviously and sat down on the bed beside her.

“Sorry, Faith,” Dawn looked miserably at her partner, “I’m not in the mood just now, the seasickness, you know? Perhaps after I’ve had a shower?”

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Faith’s words couldn’t completely hide her disappointment. “What was in that letter that had our boy so screwed up?”

Dawn took the envelope from her pocket and took out the sheets of paper inside; she looked at them carefully, first one side then the other.

“Nothing,” she passed the blank sheets over to Faith, “absolutely nothing.”

0=0=0=0

Note on RAF ranks; An RAF Flight Lieutenant (pronounced Lef-tenant in the British services) is equal in rank to an army Captain. Also just because someone has the rank of ‘Pilot Officer’ it doesn’t mean that they’re actually a pilot. 


	3. Chapter 3

3.

The seven o’clock briefing session had turned out to be more of a ‘meet and greet’ than something that told Dawn and Faith anything new. In fact it told them more about what the military guys didn’t know. So far the air force had kept the lake were the ‘object’ (as everybody was still calling it) had landed under observation; they explained that they’d been waiting for scientific back up before moving.

This attitude had appeared to impress one of the scientists in particular; Doctor Arthur Carrington (a Nobel Prize winner, it wasn’t explained how he’d won the prestigious award) appeared to be already convinced that the ‘object’ was in fact some interstellar craft. As evidence he pointed to the fact that it had decelerated as it approached the island and had appeared to be attempting to gain altitude. This view was countered by a Dr John Chapman who pointed out that the object might well be some experimental aircraft, possibly a new type of space shuttle, built by either the Russians or the Americans. At the mention of America everyone turned, to look at Faith and Dawn. Faith bristled at the attention, while Dawn contrived to look as innocent as she could, which wasn’t difficult as she was as much in the dark as everyone else.

“Hey,” she smiled disarmingly, “if this ‘object’ thing is American they’ve not told me anything about it.”

After Dawn’s denial everyone turned back to face the front of the room where Flt Lt Hendry stood with his maps and pointer. Explaining his plan Hendry told the assembled scientists and military men that they’d be starting their investigation of the crash site at ‘oh-seven-thirty’ the following morning so he suggested that everyone get a good night’s sleep. This appeared to be the end of the official part of the briefing as Hendry went on to make a few administrative points.

Some of the scientists were annoyed to hear that they’d be responsible for keeping their own rooms tidy and they’d be expected to help with the housekeeping at the base. Hendry pointed out that the number of base staff and RAF Regiment men were limited and they had their own duties so everyone would have to ‘muck in’. From context Dawn and Faith took him to mean they’d have to do ‘chores’.

After this Hendry called an end to the meeting saying that if anyone had any problems they could see him in his office tomorrow after they’d visited the crash sight. After collecting up his notes he and PO McPherson and another officer who’d been referred to as Pilot Officer Dykes (an attractive young woman who’s name must have caused her years of embarrassment) left the canteen and headed out probably to have their own meeting.

After the departure of the military the scientist broke up into two groups; Dr Carrington and three other scientists went off and huddled in a corner where they spoke amongst themselves in hushed tones. Faith tried to listen in but she couldn’t understand half the words the scientists were using so she gave up after a couple of minutes. The other group was centred on Dr Chapman; this group consisted of four other men and one woman. This left only one other person in the room who, like Faith and Dawn, weren’t part of either group.

“Hi,” a tall thin man in jeans and a heavy sweater walked up to Dawn and Faith, “I’m Ned Scott, everyone calls me ‘Scotty’ I’m a reporter with the Glasgow Herald.” He gave Dawn and Faith an apprising look, “You must be the CIA agents sent by our American cousins to keep an eye on us savages.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mr Scott,” Dawn smiled and deliberately didn’t use the reporters nick-name, “we’re just two embassy staffers sent here to observe…to be honest we’d both much prefer to be back in London.”

“Yeah, alright, have it your way,” Scotty shrugged non-committally, “so what do you think it is; flying saucer or new type of spy plane?”

“I’m putting my money on a demon,” Dawn grinned at the expression on the reporters face, “I’m betting on a Queller Demon,” she raised a questioning eyebrow, “have there been any outbreaks of insanity in the islands?”

“Insanity?” Scotty looked from Dawn to Faith (who was doing her best to not laugh) and back again. “Oh I see,” Scotty laughed, “trying to throw me off the scent with stories about demons and monsters, I thought I caught a hint of California in your voice. Thought you could fool me into thinking you’re some sorta kook.”

“Oh dear, Mr Scott,” Dawn smiled with her mouth but not with her eyes, “you’ve totally seen right through me, now if you’ll excuse us?”

Taking Faith by the arm she pulled her away from Scott.

“You think it could be a demon?” Faith asked as they walked across room to where a large silver urn of tea stood; Dawn poured two cups and passed one to Faith.

“It’d make life easier if it was,” Dawn sipped her tea and pulled a face, the tea was very strong and very sweet.

“Jeez,” gasped Faith as she looked at the offending cup of tea, “what’d they use this for, paint stripper?”

“Army tea.” The two Americans turned at the sound of a female voice, “Although here it’d be Air Force tea…hello I’m Sally Chapman,” the woman held out her hand to Faith and Dawn and gave them a big toothy smile. “I saw you talking to Scotty just now; he’s not as bad as you probably think he is, he’s just trying to do his job.”

“Aren’t we all?” Faith shook hands with the woman; she was tall, thirty-something, blonde and attractive in a ‘sporty’ sort of way. 

She was the sort of woman you expected to see dressed in a waxed cotton jacket and green wellies. She’d be tramping across muddy fields in the teeth of a gale while telling you interesting facts about the local wildlife. Faith liked her almost immediately she seemed like fun, and reminded her a little of her first watcher.

“So what’s your story?” Faith asked giving up on her tea and putting down her cup.

“That,” Sally pointed across the room, “is my husband, Dr John Chapman…”

“Yeah,” Dawn sipped her tea, “he slapped down that Carrington guy.”

“Yes,” Sally agreed, “John and Arthur don’t get on I’m afraid, something about plagiarism,” she added conspiratorially. “I’m also Dr Chapman by the way, but I’m an MD not one of these high forehead types.”

“Hope you don’t get to use your skills,” Dawn put down her cup.

“Oh,” sighed Sally, “I expect someone will fall over and graze their knee or something, so what do you do.”

“We’re CIA spies,” Faith announced straight faced.

“No!” Sally laughed, “No, what do you do…really?”

“Oh, we’re just observers from the US embassy in London,” Dawn smiled, “nothing exciting.”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed, “but no one believes us so we say that we’re CIA.”

“Oh I see,” Sally smiled as she watched the two American women, “a sort of bluff, eh? Of course it might be a double bluff and you _are_ , actually CIA agents.”

“Darn it,” Dawn sighed sadly, “now you’ve seen through our cover we’ll have to kill you!”

“Oh very good!” Sally laughed loudly then became very quiet and leaned towards the two Americans, she spoke in hushed tones, “Don’t worry your secret’s safe with me; you know you’re very good at the tired civil servant act. Must be all the training you had at Langley…Oh!” Sally gestured to her husband, “I can see John is about to go over and punch Carrington, while it’s all very funny to watch scientists punch each other, I think I better stop it before it starts.” With a cheery “Goodnight,” Sally sailed across the room like a good natured homing missile and intercepted her husband before he could punch Carrington on the nose.

0=0=0=0

“So,” asked Faith as she slipped into her bed, “what d’ya think?”

“About?” Dawn was just laying out her clothes for the next day.

“The scientists?” Faith smiled to herself, they’d not acted like she’d thought scientists should, “I mean, punching each other out, an’all.”

“Fairly typical,” Dawn replied, she’d finished with her clothes and was just checking that there was nothing else that needed doing, “and like Sally said watching scientist fight…its like watching two nerds battle it out only better coz the scientists are like so much older.”

Walking over to the door, Dawn switched off the light. Making her way back across the room she pulled back the bed clothes and climbed into bed next to Faith.

“Hey,” she complained, “move over.”

“Can’t,” Faith wriggled about trying to make room for Dawn, “the bed’s too small.”

“No,” Dawn settled in next to Faith, “It’s cosy.”

Faith let her hand roam up under Dawn’s t-shirt to rest on the younger girl’s breast.

“Faith?”

“Yeah?”

“You mind if we just snuggle tonight?”

“Sure,” Faith pulled back her hand a little, “no problem.”

“Sometimes I just like to lie here and feel you close,” Dawn explained sleepily. “Do you love me, Faith?”

Slightly stunned by the question, Faith kept quiet and thought about it for a moment. Was this love or was it just lust? Their relationship had started when they’d been chased by demon-human hybrid monsters through a forest in Scotland. Had it been a reaction to fear, they’d both been feeling a little lonely at the time so maybe it wasn’t love, perhaps it’s just…

“You know you can answer anytime soon,” Dawn broke into Faith’s thoughts, “I mean when a girl asks her honey if she loves her, she doesn’t expect to have to wait for five minutes while she thinks about it!”

“Sorry,” Faith still hadn’t answered the question; the truth was she was frightened to.

Every time she’d loved someone they’d ended up dead; her watcher, Mayor Wilkins the old soldier guy from down the corridor when she’d been a girl. She’d loved them all and they’d all ended up dead. Okay, in the Mayor’s case it was probably a good thing. But what if she told Dawn she loved her and something happened to her.

“I’m still waiting,” there was a hint of worry and disappointment in Dawn’s voice now, “I mean, I’ll understand if you say…”

“Look,” Faith sighed as she held Dawn tightly in her arms, “every time I tell someone that I love ‘em or even think I love ‘em they end up dead. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“Oh?” There didn’t seem to be any anger in Dawn’s voice but even so Faith braced herself for an angry outburst. “So,” Dawn said slowly, “by not telling me you love me you’re saving my life and by saving my life you’re actually telling me that you love me?” 

“Something like that,” Faith frowned at Dawn’s twisted logic.

“Cool,” Dawn snuggled up to Faith and got herself comfortable, she yawned sleepily, “see you in the morning.”

“Yeah, sure,” Faith replied relieved.

0=0=0=0

After an early breakfast, Dawn and Faith found themselves standing outside as a fitful drizzle fell from a leaden sky; at least while it was raining the wind wasn’t as strong. They stood around in their hiking boots and waterproof clothes waiting for some one to tell them what to do when a short man with Corporal’s strips on his camouflaged jacket came over to them.

“Corporal Barnes,” the man said with a cherry smile and a casual salute, “Mr McPherson says I’m to be your driver and generally look after you.”

“Thanks,” Dawn smiled back, “but I think we can look after ourselves.”

“Um,” the corporal looked slightly embarrassed, “sorry ma’am, but those are my orders so you’re stuck with me.”

Dawn was just about to complain about being call ‘Ma’am’ when she remembered that she looked nearly thirty now.

“Hey,” Faith interrupted, “that’s fine; tell your Mr McPherson thanks.”

They were led over to a Land Rover and squeezed into the front next to the corporal. Their Rover was number four in a convoy of about a dozen vehicles, most of them just like their own, but there were a couple of larger trucks hauling heavy equipment. As they sat they watched as the RAF guys herded the scientists aboard vehicles and at about eight o’clock the convoy rolled out of the gate and headed off down a rough track that quickly petered out until they were driving over unmarked heather.

The lake was about five miles from the base across desolate rolling country covered with purple heather. Corporal Barnes pointed out that the island, apart from some low, rocky hills and the coast was just one big peat bog. It was like driving over a water logged sponge. As long as you kept to the tracks or where the heather was thickest you’d likely be alright. He warned them against wandering off by themselves. You could easily step into a small pool and disappear completely into the black, brackish water.

After almost an hour of driving they reached the lake where the ‘object’ had crashed. The lake was in a shallow bowl in the land surrounded on three sides by the same heather covered land as they’d just driven over. The forth side of the lake looked out over the sea about half a mile away; the heather between the lake and the sea was scorched and burnt, obviously from the ‘object’s’ approach. The lake itself was about five hundred yards across and almost circular and there just near the centre of the lake a silver fin stuck out of the water showing about five feet above the surface.

“Well that settles that,” observed Corporal Barnes as he put on the hand brake and switched off the engine, “its some sort of aircraft.”

Watching from the lake shore, Dawn and Faith waited while the scientists ‘discussed’ (it sounded more like an argument to the two Americans) what could be hidden by the lake’s dark waters and the RAF men pulled inflatable dinghies from the backs of the two trucks. They saw Flt Lt Hendry walk towards them.

“Good morning, agents,” he glanced up to study the clouds as they went by at the speed of a freight train; the rain had stopped and the wind was getting back up. “We’re going out in the inflatables to try and get an idea of what we’ve got out there, either of you care to join us?”

“I’ll go,” Faith announced reluctantly just as Dawn started to open her mouth to speak, “By partner here would only get seasick again.”

“Hey!” Dawn while sounding insulted looked relieved as Faith headed off towards the lake with Hendry.

Half an hour later, Faith found herself sitting in one of the inflatables with Carrington, a Dr Stern and another scientist, called Wilson, whose wild grey hair stuck out from under his brightly coloured, knitted, woollen hat. The dinghy was operated by an RAF Aircraftsman, who was actually a woman, who fought to keep the boat steady as they came up to the fin where it protruded from the lake. The wind had got strong enough to cause small waves on the surface of the lake.

“Here,” Carrington threw a rope around the fin and tried to hold the boat steady against it.

“Let me help,” Faith joined the doctor in hanging onto the rope.

“Doctor Stern,” Carrington called over the sound of the boat’s outboard and the rising wind, “see if you can get a sample of the metal, if you’d be so kind?”

“Indeed, Doctor,” Stern searched through a bag at his feet and removed a large metalwork file.

After running the file back and forth over a small section of the fin for a couple of minutes, Stern sat back down and shook his head.

“Something wrong?” Faith asked.

“This must be some incredibly hard material,” Stern ran his hand over where he’d just been filing, “I’ve not even made a mark.”

“Not to worry,” Carrington looked disappointed for a moment, “we’ll have to get a diamond drill sent up so we can take samples.”

Just then, Hendry called for everyone’s attention; he was using a megaphone. He wanted every one to position themselves around the ‘object’ so they could get an idea of the size and shape of the ‘object’. Watching from the shore, Dawn felt Scotty the reporter come to stand next to her.

“What do you think it is?” he asked as he took several photographs of the scene, the boats were now arranged in almost a perfect circle in the middle of the lake.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Dawn replied precisely.

“Oh, come on,” Scotty lowered his camera to look at Dawn, “you’ve got to have some idea. What is it UFO or spy plane?”

“Off the record?” Dawn asked.

“Yeah,” Scotty replied reluctantly, “off the record.”

“I’m still going with demon,” Dawn couldn’t help smiling at the reporter’s look of disappointment.

“Hold on,” Scotty pointed to where all the boats were starting to congregate. “Looks like they’ve found something else!”

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

“It’s like a cocoon,” Dr Redding said in wonder as he ran his hand gently over the long green object.

“Looks more like a pod to me,” Dawn voiced her opinion as she joined the group at the lake shore.

“Yes,” agreed Dr Carrington, he knelt down next to the pod, “see,” he pointed, “its made of some fibrous material and look,” he indicated what looked like a broken off stem at one end of the pod, “it looks as if it was attached to something.”

There was an excited buzz of conversation as the scientists crowded round the pod. Dawn had watched the salvage operation from the shore. The pod appeared to have been ejected from the craft (everyone was calling it a ‘craft’ now) similar to a pilot using an ejector seat. However, something must have gone wrong and the pod never made it to dry land. The pod had been spotted when the expedition had been trying to get an idea of the shape of the craft.

It had appeared to be floating a few feet beneath the surface of the lake suspended in the dark freezing water like an insect trapped in amber. Using long poles taken from a large military tent the pod had been pushed towards the shore to where some one could get a rope around it and pull it up onto the beach.

Coming up behind Dawn, Faith steadied her as a blast of wind nearly blew her off her feet. They both looked up at the sky to see the clouds were now almost touching the tops of the low hills to the south; large drops of freezing rain where beginning to splash against there faces with increasing regularity. After watching the scientists talk excitedly around the pod for a moment they noticed Hendry and McPherson having an animated discussion of there own.

“Gentlemen!” Hendry called as he walked over to the group of scientists, “As you may have noticed the weather’s deteriorating we better get back to camp.”

The scientist stood in bewilderment for a moment seemingly noticing the deteriorating weather conditions for the first time. Slowly there were mutterings of agreement and the scientist reluctantly moved away from the pod allowing the RAF personnel to move in and start to load it into the back of one of the trucks along with all the equipment.

“What do you think, Faith?” Dawn asked quietly as the huddled against the side of a Land Rover and watched the military manhandle the pod into the back of a truck.

“I think there’s something inside that pod,” Faith’s eye narrowed as she watched the pod being moved.

“Something good like candy and puppies?” Dawn asked hopefully knowing all the time that she was wrong.

“Nah,” Faith shook her head and moved closer to Dawn, she put her arm protectively around Dawn’s shoulder, “what do ya think?”

“I’m thinking we’re going to have to find a way of destroying that thing,” Dawn looked miserably at the pod as the rain started to come down in great drenching sheets. “Wouldn’t it be cool to meet something nice once in a while?”

“Never happen, Dawnie,” Faith sighed sadly, “never happen.”

0=0=0=0

The weather had got increasingly worse as they drove back towards RAF Gloup. By the time the convoy drove through the gate the rain was torrential and the wind was rocking the vehicles as they drove along. Running into the main building, Faith and Dawn were glad of their waterproof clothing, even so by the time they ran through the front door their faces were as wet as if they’d been standing in a shower.

After getting out of their outdoors clothes the two young women made their way around to a storage room where the RAF Regiment troops had unloaded the pod. Already there was an argument going on between Hendry, Carrington and Chapman. Arguing appeared to be the default setting for the two scientists; Hendry looked as if he’d just been caught up in the middle.

“…we must open up that pod and find out what’s inside,” Carrington explained urgently, “who knows what wonders we may discover.”

“Don’t you mean what wonders you can claim to have discovered,” Chapman poked at Carrington with the stem of his pipe.

“I resent the suggestion that I’d claim all the glory for myself!” Carrington looked as if he was going to explode.

“Why?” sneered Chapman, “It’s never stopped you before!”

“Why you!” Carrington was about to take a swing at Chapman just as Hendry intervened.

“GENTLEMEN!” Hendry yelled as he stepped between the two warring scientists, “No body will be doing anything to anybody until I get orders from my commanding officer.”

“BUT!?” both Carrington and Chapman turned on Hendry.

“NO!” Hendry held up his hand stopping the scientists before they could give him a hundred good reasons why their ideas were better. “I will not put this base at risk, who knows there may be spoors or something in that pod. What if they get out and infect us with some terrible disease and turn us all into zombies?”

For a moment Dawn thought Hendry was joking trying to lighten the mood a little. One look at his face told her he was deadly serious.

“But that’s preposterous!” Carrington turned his full attention onto Hendry.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Hendry wasn’t sorry in the slightest, he turned to McPherson, “Mr McPherson, the pod is staying here until I’ve spoken to Wing Commander Fogerty. Put a guard on it and no one,” Hendry glared at Carrington and Chapman, “I repeat, no one is to touch it without myself being present, understand?”

“Yes sir,” McPherson drew himself up straight and moved to stand between the pod and the scientists.

“Now,” Hendry said in a calmer tone of voice, “I suggest we all go to the canteen and have a cup of tea.”

0=0=0=0

Tagging along at the back of the group, Dawn could almost feel the tenseness in Faith’s body.

“Somehow,” Faith whispered, “I’ve gotta get in there an’ destroy that thing.”

“Don’t worry,” Dawn reassured her, “we’ll find a way.”

Watching as the scientists broke up into two mutually distrustful camps; Dawn and Faith sat and sipped their tea as they wondered what it might be doing to their insides.

“So you’re quite sure its evil?” Dawn asked her companion quietly.

“Sure as sure can be,” confirmed Faith with a slight nod.

“Okay,” Dawn frowned as she thought the problem through, “all we have to do is sneak past a couple of guards and destroy the thing.”

“No,” Faith shook her head slowly, “all _I_ have to do is sneak past the guards an’ destroy the thing.”

“But!” Dawn was just about to round on her lover like an arguing scientist when Faith caught her eye making her stop before her rant had begun.

“Slayer, remember?” Faith pointed out with inescapable logic, “my job. I’ll go in there tonight, knock out the guards if I have to and take an axe to it.”

“No,” Dawn slowly shook her head; now it was Faith’s turn to argue but Dawn wouldn’t let her get started, “remember what Hendry said?”

Slowly Faith nodded her head; spoors escaping from the pod infecting everyone was a factor to be considered.

“I’ll go ‘round to the motor pool an’ get some gas,” Faith explained, “drag the thing outside an’ set fire to it.”

“In this weather?” Dawn pointed to a window and the rain that lashed down outside.

“Crap!” Faith cursed as her plan was shot down before it could begin, “Maybe it’ll have stopped by then.”

Dawn gave her lover a disbelieving look.

“Yeah okay,” conceded Faith, “look I’ll just have to burn it inside with out bringing down the rest of the camp, okay?”

The rest of the day passed slowly by. A guard was placed on the pod with one man in the room and another standing outside. Hendry contacted his commanding officer but had received no instructions. The two groups of scientists sat on either side of the canteen and glared at each other with ill concealed hostility. Dawn and Faith got so bored that they eventually went back to their room to make their own entertainment.

It was just before six when the alarms started to sound. Dawn and Faith had just finished getting back into their clothes and were about to head for the canteen when the sound of sirens spilt the air. Rushing out into the corridor they heard a short burst of automatic gunfire coming from the direction of the store room where they’d left the pod. Turning they sprinted towards the sound of firing. As they ran around the corner of the passageway leading to the storeroom, they herd another burst of fire. This was followed by a short scream as an airman stumbled out into the corridor and collapsed onto the floor.

Apparently being the first to arrive, Dawn went to help the airman while Faith burst into the storeroom ready to fight whatever horror might be lurking there. What she actually found was a man shaped hole in the wall and the other guard who lay groaning on the floor clutching his head. The pod lay on the floor pulled apart like something had burst from inside it. Ignoring the guard for a moment, Faith hurried over to the hole in the wall were the wind blew in the rain to soak the concrete floor.

Gazing up at the hole Faith gulped a little, okay so the hole was man-shaped, if the man was nearly eight feet tall! Straining her eyes, Faith looked out into the rain lashed evening gloom, her first thought was, ‘And this is summer?’ Her second thought was she’d never find the creature in these conditions. As if to prove her wrong she heard a commotion coming from the pen where the RAF kept a couple of guard dogs.

Without thinking Faith ran out into the rain, within a fraction of a second she was soaked to the skin. Her jeans and t-shirt stuck to her like a second skin as she moved towards the sound of growling and frantic barking. Peering through the rain and trying to stop herself from being blown over, Faith eventually made it to the dog pound; she found the chain link fence had been ripped apart and something huge was standing in the middle of the pound.

One dog was already down and the other was being held by the neck in the creature’s hand as if it was a toy. The creature must have sensed Faith or something because it turned to face her and threw the dog’s corpse at her before making off into the rain. The dead dog hit Faith and knocked her onto the wet gravel surface of the pound. Struggling to get from under the dead dog’s wet fur, Faith froze as she noticed what the dog still had clamped between its teeth.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me!” Faith cried in surprise as she pried the dog’s jaws apart and removed the creature’s severed arm from the dog’s mouth.

“Agent Lehane!” Hendry stood over Faith with an automatic pistol in his hand, his blue grey pullover already soaked through, “Are you alright?” 

He reached down to help Faith up, Ignoring the offered hand, Faith climbed to her feet still clutching the severed arm, she waved it under the officer’s nose.

“That fucking thing killed two dogs, had its arm pulled off and still had the strength to rip through the fence and run off!” Faith’s report was accurate, to the point and disturbing.

“So I see,” agreed Hendry showing amazing calm.

“It was probably scared,” this came from Carrington who appeared out of the rain; he’d taken the time to put on his rain gear before coming out, “seeing itself surrounded by hostile men it did the only sensible thing and escaped,” Carrington explained in a superior tone of voice, “no doubt you’d have done the same in a similar situation.”

“Scared!?” Faith rounded on the scientist, “Sure I’d have escaped but I wouldn’t come back and killed a couple of dogs that were no real threat to me.” Faith turned to Hendry again, she still clutched the severed arm and used it to point off into the rain swept countryside, “We’ve gotta hunt it down and kill it!”

“I agree with Ms Lehane!” Chapman appeared also dressed in his rain gear, “this thing is obviously dangerous and should be destroyed!”

“NO!” Carrington cried turning like a tiger ready to attack Chapman, “We must study it. It must be so much wiser than we are, think of all the wonders that it can teach us.”

“And all the discoveries that you can claim as your own!” Chapman snapped back.

Reaching towards Faith, Hendry gently took the thing’s arm from her hand.

“While these two eminent scientists are discussing their differing points of view,” Hendry cast a glance over to were the two men were yelling into each other’s faces. “I think we should get you inside, you look cold.”

Following Hendry’s eyes, Faith noticed that her nipples were standing out hard against the poor protection of her soaking wet t-shirt.

“Yeah, right,” Faith crossed her arms over her chest and followed the officer back to the store room.

Getting back into the shelter of the store, Faith started to shiver; she saw Dawn helping Sally Chapman with one of the injured guards, while the rest of the scientists milled around as McPherson and a couple of his men stood guard by the hole in the wall.

“Mr McPherson,” Hendry strode over to the other officer, “take out a small patrol and see if you can find this creature. It can’t have got far it left one of its arms behind.”

“May I?” the grey haired scientist, Dr Wilson, had moved with surprising speed and was gently but firmly tugging on the creatures arm.

Relinquishing control of the arm to the wild haired academic, Hendry and McPherson stepped aside and held a short whispered conversation.

“Sir,” McPherson looked around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear, he didn’t count on slayer hearing. “Airman O’Brian swears blind he hit the creature several times. His bullets had no apparent effect.”

“Well,” Hendry looked concerned, “we still need to find the damn thing, do what you can Ken.”

“Sir,” McPherson turned away from his fellow officer, called four armed airmen over and headed out into the rapidly falling night.

“Gentlemen,” Hendry called getting everyone’s attention, “ladies, lets move this into the canteen shall we?” 

The crowd started to file out of the room just as a senior RAF NCO pushed his way in.

“SIR!” he called across the heads of the assembled scientists.

“What is it Flight?” Henry asked tiredly.

“Sorry, sir,” the Flight Sergeant gave his officer a worried frown, “the radio mast is down and the land line’s gone dead. It must be the storm.”

“Fine!” was there a note of desperation in Hendry’s voice? “See what you can do about restoring communications.”

“Faith,” Dawn came up behind her girlfriend and rested her hand on her shoulder, “you’re soaked. Come back to the room and we’ll get you dry and warm again.”

“Did ya hear that?” Faith let herself be led back to their room, “The radio mast’s down and the landline’s out!” Faith thought for a moment, “What’s a landline?”

“Thing they used before cellphones,” Dawn explained.

“Oh,” Faith nodded her head as she was led shivering back to their room, “that thing probably did it.”

“I expect you’re right,” Dawn opened the door and pushed Faith into the room ahead of her, “but before we do anything lets get you out of those wet clothes.” 

“Yeah sure,” Faith started to pull off her drenched t-shirt; she noticed Dawn starting to undress as well. “Hey what ya doin’?”

“You’re freezing cold,” Dawn slipped out of her jeans and stood before Faith in her underwear, “the best way I know of restoring someone’s body temperature is,” Dawn stepped up close to Faith, “close,” she put her arms around Faith’s shoulders, “bodily contact.” Moulding herself to Faith’s body, Dawn kissed lips that still trembled with the cold, “Now doesn’t that feel better?”

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Standing around a table in the canteen the scientists watched as Carrington, Wilson and Stern examined the arm left behind by the thing when it’d attacked the guard dogs. Coming up behind the group Dawn and Faith tried to see what was going on.

“Where did you find the arm?” Carrington asked McPherson.

“I didn’t, Miss Lehane took it from the jaws of one of the dead dogs,” McPherson replied, he frowned, “Can dogs tear off someone’s arm?”

“It’s kind of an arm,” Carrington turned back to the table and gestured at the appendage lying there.

“Careful, Doctor,” said Dr Wilson, “those barbs are razor sharp.”

The older academic pointed to the claw like protrusions on the severed arm’s finger tips and knuckles.

“Yes,” agreed Carrington, “they seem to be some sort of chitinous material, somewhere between a beetle’s back and a rose thorn, amazingly strong.”

“Very effective as a weapon,” observed Stern.

“You won’t have to worry about that,” Hendry announced, “with an arm off he won’t last long.”

“That is blood on the arm there?” Wilson peered through a magnifying glass at the brown smears on the arm.

“Yes,” Carrington agreed, “but not his blood, I expect it came from one of the dogs.”

“There’s no blood in the arm,” Wilson pointed out, “no animal tissue at all.”

“Doctor Stern,” Carrington took a sample from the arm and put it on a slide before giving it to Stern, “please take a look at this under the microscope.”

Stern got up and walked across the room to where a microscope had been placed on a spare table.

“I doubt very much whether it can die,” explained Carrington, “not as we understand dying.” Carrington looked over to where Stern gazed into his microscope, “Well Doctor?”

“No arterial structure indicated,” called Stern, “No nerve endings visible…porous, unconnected cellular growth.”

“Just a minute Doctor,” the newspaper man, Scott pushed himself to the front of the crowd, “This sounds like you’re describing a plant!”

“I am,” Stern replied.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” exclaimed Scott.

“That could be why the bullets fired at it had no effect,” observed Dr Chapman.

“That’s right,” Carrington agreed with his rival just this once, “they’d just be holes drilled into vegetable matter.”

“This green fluid here,” Stern pointed with a scalpel at some liquid that oozed from the severed arm, “it’s like sap.”

“We’ll probably find its sugar based,” suggested Chapman.

“Please Doctor,” Scotty looked at the faces around the table, “I’ve got to ask to make sure I’ve got this right. It sounds like your describing some sort of super carrot!”

Dawn couldn’t help but giggle at the comment.

“That’s nearly right Mr Scott,” Carrington turned to Scott and started to sound so superior as he spoke. “This ‘carrot’ as you call it,” the doctor sneeringly explained, “has constructed a craft that can fly through space; using a form of propulsion we cannot even guess at.”

“An intellectual carrot,” amended Scott, “the mind boggles.”

“It shouldn’t, you intellectual cripple,” Carrington said too quietly for Scott to hear, but Faith certainly did. “On the planet from which out visitor came,” Carrington resumed speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, “vegetable life underwent an evolution similar to animal life here on Earth…which would account for its superior brain.”

“And you worked all this out from its arm?” scoffed Chapman as he pushed himself away from the table and laughed, “HA!”

“It’s development,” Carrington rounded on Chapman, “was not clouded by sexual or emotional matters!”

“You can see why he’s single,” Faith whispered in Dawn’s ear.

“Again,” Chapman stood up and glared at Carrington, “you worked all this out from examining its arm? What was your Nobel Prize for?” Chapman demanded, “Fiction? This is the worst type of pseudo science imaginable!” Chapman shouted across the table, “How you can call yourself a scientist I don’t know?”

“Gentlemen!” Hendry stepped between the two scientists before a fight could start; his intervention calmed the situation a little. “Doctor Chapman I take it you have a different opinion, would you mind telling us what that is?”

“I’m sorry,” Chapman calmed down and turned to the RAF officer, “but I haven’t had time to form a hypothesis and I do not indulge in wild speculation like some others!”

“Look here,” Carrington drew the attention of the rooms occupants back to himself, he handed Stern a small green object. “I took it from the soft tissue under the palm of the hand.”

“A seed pod!” Stern gasped as he studied it.

“A seed pod?” chorused at least half the people around the table.

“Yes,” Carrington nodded smugly, “the neat, unconfused reproduction technique of plants.”

“He’s certainly got a downer on sex,” observed Dawn quietly.

“Probably never got any at high school,” Faith suggested.

“No pain or pleasure…” Carrington pointed out wistfully.

“But pain and pleasure’s the best part!” everyone turned to look at Dawn, “Erm, did I say that out loud?”

“No emotions, no heart,” Carrington continued ignoring Dawn’s interruption, “Our superior in every way.”

“Oh give me a break!” Faith sighed.

“Again,” Chapman pointed out, “you got all this from an arm?” Once more Chapman laughed, “Admit it Carrington you know as much as anyone else here until you can study this creature in its natural habitat. At the moment you’re just expounding wild fantasy’s that have more to do with your own sexual inadequacies than they do with real science!”

“Don’t you realise what we’ve found here?” Carrington demanded angrily, “A being from another world as different from us as one pole is from another…”

“Like, they’re both cold and covered in snow?” Dawn pointed out; she thought Chapman was the more down to earth of the two scientists.

“Whatever!” Carrington snapped, “If we can communicate with it, imagine the secrets we can learn…”

A loud tapping came from the direction of the table; slowly everyone turned and looked back down at the arm.

“Fuck me…” gasped Scott, “…its moving!”

“YES!” Carrington’s eyes shone insanely, “It must have ingested the canine blood and come back to life, MAW-HA-HA! Its alive! Its alive!”

“You mean…” Scott eyed Carrington warily, “...it lives on blood?”

“RIGHT!” Dawn stepped forward, “If it lives on blood I say we kill it!”

“Yeah!” Faith agreed stepping forward to join Dawn.

“Yes!” Carrington turned to face the two women, “This is the reaction you’d expect from the CIA, destroy anything they don’t understand or try to use it as a weapon!”

Just then Flight Sergeant Roberts burst into the canteen holding an axe, he handed it to Hendry.

“That’s the best we could find sir,” Roberts stood back as he handed the axe over.

“What are you doing?” Carrington demanded.

“I’m going to find this vampire carrot of yours, Doctor,” Hendry started towards the door.

“STOP!” Carrington cried running after the rapidly departing RAF officer.

“Roberts,” Hendry was already outside the door and issuing orders, “search the base and secure all the outside doors.” Next he turned to the RAF Regiment officer, “Ken, I want you and your men to patrol around the camp, that thing can’t have gone far.”

“When you find the creature,” Carrington asked, “what will you do? We must try to communicate with it.”

“Doctor,” Hendry turned on Carrington making the academic stop in surprise, “you can do anything you want with it as long as its locked up.”

“Hey,” Scott called from the back of the group, “let me get a picture of it before you chop it into a salad!”

“Flight Loo-tenant!” Dawn called as she pushed her way past the crowd to stand in front of Hendry, “What can we do?” she gestured to Faith and herself.

“Well,” Hendry looked from Dawn to Faith, “what can you do?”

“Look,” Dawn said quietly, “I might just be an analyst but Faith’s a field agent if you know what I mean?”

“I thought as much,” Hendry admitted, “keep an eye on those scientists for me; try to stop them killing each other.”

“Okay,” Dawn agreed reluctantly, she really wanted to be out after the thing.

Walking on down the corridor at the head of his search party, Hendry burst into the communications room. Pilot Officer Dykes jumped to her feet.

“Sir!” she gasped perturbed at all the armed men who’d invaded her cosy little world, “I just received part of a message from Group Captain Fogerty.”

“I thought the mast was down?” Hendry stared at his second in command.

“It is sir,” admitted Dykes, “but we can still receive every now and again.”

“Okay,” Hendry nodded, “what has Group got to say for himself?”

“He said, Mr Scott can’t post his story.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes sir,” the young woman admitted.

“Alright, Eddie keep trying to get through,” Hendry ordered, “and lock yourself in there’s a vampire carrot on the loose!”

“A what sir?” Dykes’ voice was cut off as the door was closed and Hendry and his team clumped out into the corridor.

Walking further down the corridor, Corporal Barnes cried out.

“Hold it sir!” the junior NCO paused and listened, “I thought I heard something.”

“Where?” demanded Hendry clutching his axe tightly.

“Behind that door,” Barnes pointed at the door facing him.

“No!” Carrington said hastily.

“But sir I heard something,” insisted Barnes.

“Yes you probably did,” admitted Carrington, “that’s Ms Nicholson.”

“Who?” chorused the RAF contingent turning to look at Carrington suspiciously.

“Ms Nicholson,” Carrington looked away embarrassed, “she’s my, erm…assistant.”

“Assistant?” Hendry asked knowingly. “Well, I’m going to have to look anyway.”

Before Carrington could stop him, Hendry had opened the door and walked into the room, axe in hand. A woman’s voice floated softly from the room into the corridor.

“My-my young man, that’s an enormous chopper you’ve got there!”

Hendry retreated from the room and closed the door behind him, after giving Carrington a disapproving look he lead his party on down the corridor. They came to another locked door.

“What’s behind there?” Carrington wanted to know.

“My greenhouse,” Hendry replied, “I’m growing a prize marrow to enter in the local agricultural show.”

Unlocking the door, Hendry led the way through into the greenhouse. After checking the door leading to the outside and finding the room devoid of alien plant life, Hendry turned about and led his men back into the corridor; not noticing that Carrington and several of the posse of academics had detached themselves from the search party and had stayed in the greenhouse.

“Gentlemen,” Carrington turned to the three men who’d stayed in the greenhouse with him. “I just happened to notice,” he pointed to the floor by the back door.

“Its wet,” observed Dr Stern, “its as if someone opened the back door.”

“Would you look at the door, Doctor Olsen?” Carrington asked; Olsen went over to the door and examined the lock.

“Are you saying you think the creature was in here?” Stern demanded.

“Yes,” Carrington agreed as he walked around the greenhouse as if he was looking for something; he paused next to a large meal bin used for storing compost. “It might very well have found its way back inside.” Something caught Carrington’s eye, he stepped away from the bin, “My god!”

Following Carrington’s pointing figure the other men saw a small patch of what might be dried blood on the floor by the bin.

“Doctor Carrington,” Olsen called from by the door, “you were right the lock’s been forced then bent back into shape!” Olsen came over to stand with the others, “The keys gone too and the door’s been locked from outside.”

“Look,” Auerbach the third scientist with Carrington pointed to something that had been smeared on the top of the bin near the catch, “that looks like the plant sap from the arm.”

“Open it please,” Carrington said to Stern as he stepped away from the bin.

Reluctantly Stern opened the bin only to jump back himself as the body of one of the RAF guard dogs fell out onto the floor.

“Not even cold yet,” Carrington pushed his way between the two other academics and bent to examine the dog.

“Doesn’t it seem kind of shrunken?” Olsen knelt down next to Carrington.

“Is there any blood in there?” Carrington stood up again as Stern checked the bin for blood.

“None,” Stern announced, “it’s blood has been drained.”

“Everything falls right into place,” Carrington stood oddly still as his eyes took on a faraway look. “What could be more natural for a being of its kind than seeking out a dry place. It came here for refuge, heard us and ran.” Carrington looked eagerly at his colleagues, “It’s been here once, and it’ll come back!”

“We’d better tell Hendry…” began Stern before he was cut off by Carrington.

“I don’t agree,” Carrington realised that Stern might cause problems; a plan was forming in his mind that would allow him to communicate with the alien. “I think it’s far better if science…”

“Are you sure?” Stern looked worried he didn’t like the idea of keeping things from Hendry.

“I’m sure we must communicate with it,” Carrington brushed aside Stern’s objections. “We must! It’s wiser than we are, it’s our only chance to talk to it,” and, Carrington added to himself, his only chance to win another Nobel Prize. “To learn so many things…”

“Dr Carrington…” Stern tried to object again.

“Surely you can understand that, Stern,” Carrington sneered; he turned to look at the other men in the room. “Will you stand guard with me?”

“Gladly,” chorused Olsen and Auerbach taken in by Carrington, Stern still wasn’t convinced.

“Good,” Carrington turned to Stern, “go tell Dr Voorhees what we’ve found, ask him to come back and relieve us in the morning,” Stern turned to go but was stopped as Carrington laid a hand on his arm, “and tell him to confide in no one.”

Still having his doubts, Stern left the room as Carrington explained his theories to the others.

0=0=0=0

Back in the canteen, Dawn did a quick head count coming up five scientists short, she turned to Faith.

“Where’d they all go?”

Faith looked around and shrugged just as Stern walked into the room and started a whispered conversation with Voorhees. After a few moments the two men left the room.

“I wonder where they’re going?” Dawn asked.

“Ya want me to follow them?” Faith asked.

Considering this for a moment Dawn shook her head, they couldn’t go anywhere with Hendry sealing off the base. If they couldn’t get outside they were in no danger. She’d been asked to stop fights between the scientists not act as their nurse maid.

“So,” Dawn turned to Faith, “how do we kill it?”

“We’ll try the usual stuff first,” Faith explained, “then if that don’t work we’ll try an’ burn it.”

“Okay,” Dawn agreed, “stake to the heart, decapitation then if that fails we’ll set it on fire, sounds cool…so what do we use to burn it with?”

“Flame thrower would be good,” Faith said with a grin, “but what’s the odds they don’t have one.”

“Pretty high,” agreed Dawn.

“That sorta leaves throwin’ gas over it an’ setting it on fire,” Faith turned and grinned at Dawn, “you got any matches?”

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

6.

The wind howled and shook the building as rain hit the roof making it sound like it was having handfuls of gravel thrown against it. Shivering despite her warm pullover, Dawn turned to survey the canteen which appeared to be the place everyone congregated for news and companionship. At the moment, apart from a couple of RAF guys sitting in the far corner drinking tea, she was the only other person around.

It was late and most people had gone to bed. Faith was poking around somewhere on the base looking for a supply of gas, or petrol as the British called it. Dawn was just thinking it was time to go to bed herself when one of the doors to the canteen burst open and in staggered Dr Stern. He almost immediately collapsed onto the floor. Rushing over to the man, Dawn saw that the front of his jersey was ripped to shreds and blood oozed from a multitude of long thin cuts on his chest. Skidding to a halt by to the man, Dawn knelt down next to him and for just a moment she recoiled from the sight of so much blood moments later her first aid training kicked in.

“First aid kit!” she yelled at one of the RAF men who’d come to see if he could help, the other man was already talking rapidly into a phone.

The RAF man ran to the opposite wall where a first aid kit hung, his boots thudding on the floor. Snatching the kit from its housing he ran back to where Stern lay, opening the kit he helped Dawn try to staunch the scientist’s bleeding.

“What happened?” Dawn asked urgently as she ripped open dressings and pressed them against the cuts in Stern’s chest.

“The thing!” gasped Stern as he fought to stay awake, “It-it took Olsen and Auerbach…”

“Took?” Dawn gave the RAF man helping her a worried look just as Hendry and several other people burst into the room.

“Alright, Ms Summers,” Sally Chapman strode across the room to kneel down next to Stern, her dressing gown getting stained with blood as she did so, “I’ll take over now,” she gave Stern a quick examination. “I need to get this man to the medical centre, now!”

Two RAF men picked Stern up and carefully carried him towards the medical centre as Sally Chapman continued to work on his injuries.

“Alright,” Hendry demanded, “what the hell’s going on?”

“He said the thing came and took Olsen and Auerbach,” Dawn explained as she wiped blood from her hands.

“Took?” Hendry looked around the canteen as if expecting to see signs of a visit by the creature, “From where?”

“Don’t know,” Dawn shrugged her shoulders, “he just burst into the room and collapsed.”

“Okay,” Hendry stood in thought for a second and turned to one of his airmen, “find Mr McPherson, explain what we know and have him come here.”

The airman left rapidly as Hendry turned to Flight Sergeant Roberts.

“Flight, go find Ms Dykes and see if we can get a message out,” Hendry’s eyes fell on the blood smeared across the floor, “we need help. Do what you can to get the radio working, that’s your priority, okay?”

“Sir,” Roberts nodded in understanding before leaving the room.

Just as the sergeant left, McPherson came in followed by Corporal Barnes.

“What’s going on Patrick?” McPherson asked just as he saw the blood on the floor and on Dawn’s hands.

Explaining quickly, Hendry filled in the RAF Regiment officer on recent events.

“We’ll need to search the base, see where this damn thing got in,” Hendry led the way out into the corridor and towards the armoury. “Then we’ll track it down and destroy it once and for all.” Hendry noticed Dawn tagging along at the back of the group, “Where do you think you’re going, Ms Summers?”

“I’m coming with you,” Dawn replied firmly, “I came to observe remember? I can’t do that from inside the canteen.”

“I suppose not,” Hendry gave in rather too quickly as far as Dawn was concerned.

“Here,” Hendry pulled the automatic pistol from the holster on his hip and handed it to Dawn, “just in case.”

Looking at the weapon, Dawn wondered why people weren’t arguing with her more, but then it hit her. She looked ten years older, she suspected that with age came respect and people just assumed she knew what she was doing. If she’d still looked like a teenager, Hendry would probably be ordering her back to her room about now. Smiling to herself, Dawn checked the pistol was safe before tucking into the waist band of her jeans. They were at the armoury now and weapons were being handed out and search parties were being dispatched as personnel turned up. It was only then that Dawn started to wonder where Faith was.

0=0=0=0

Pushing open a door, Faith found herself in a large, high roofed chamber. She flicked on the light switches to find herself in some sort of vehicle maintenance bay. There were lockers and work benches all around the walls. One wall was made up of a big metal door that opened by being rolled up by an electric motor. In the middle of the bay stood a blue-grey military truck; its hood was open and what looked like most of its engine was spread out on plastic sheets in front of it.

“Cool,” Faith breathed as she walked further into the room; if she was going to find gas this was probably the place she’d do it.

Walking around the truck, her footsteps echoing on the concrete floor, Faith examined the tools left lying on the workbenches and hanging from hooks on the wall. Picking up a large hammer she hefted it in her hand and grinned. It would do nicely as a weapon until she found some thing better. Continuing with her search, she came to a fenced off area in the far corner of the bay next to the vehicle entrance. Inside she could see forty-five gallon drums and she could smell petrol.

“Bingo!” Faith smiled happily as she broke the padlock securing the gate.

Just as she was checking the drums, Faith froze as her ears picked up a soft footfall on the other side of the bay behind the truck. Snatching up her hammer, she stepped quietly out of the cage and stopped to listen. Although her sensitive slayer ears couldn’t hear anything now, she could feel something in the bay with her. Running silently across the oily concrete, Faith hid behind the truck. Crouching down she looked under the vehicle to see a pair of legs standing motionless on the other side of the vehicle.

The legs were encased in some shimmering sort of material that looked like oil on water. The colours shifted as she watched them swirl to form weird patterns. Maybe, she thought idly, it was some sort of camouflage and it couldn’t cope with the colours in the bay. Perhaps the creature had been going out and these were its party clothes. Faith stifled the giggle that almost gave her position away. Looking under the truck again, she found that the legs had moved.

“Where the fuck?” something prompted Faith to turn around.

Dodging the creature’s clumsy blow, Faith rolled under the truck and kept on rolling until she came out the other side. Bouncing to her feet she saw the thing reappear and take another swing at her. Lifting her arm she managed to block the blow but was sent flying across the bay to smash into a grey steel locker. Crashing to the floor, Faith looked up to see the creature advancing on her with long fast strides.

Once again, Faith climbed to her feet as the creature made another swing at her, this time she managed to duck under the blow and succeeded in landing a blow of her own; it was like punching a tree. Running away from the creature, Faith shook some feeling back into her hand and decided that next time she’d use the hammer and not her fist.

On came the monster, it might be strong and fast but it wasn’t what Faith would call agile. Now she was ready for it she easily dodged its next attempt at hitting her. Swinging her hammer with all the force she could muster, she hit the creature on what should have been its elbow. Several things registered in Faith’s brain at the same time. First, although the hammer made a good meaty *THUMP!* as it hit the creature the thing ignored the blow and came on trying to grab hold of her as she danced away from the thing.

The other thing she noticed was the creature had _two_ arms. Hadn’t the guard dogs pulled one off? Hadn’t she watched those scientist guys poke its arm about in the canteen? The answer to both these questions was, _yes_.

“Crap!” Faith ducked another blow and ran off behind the truck before the thing could catch hold of her.

This, quite honestly, was all she needed, _not_ ; a creature that grew back bits if you chopped them off. Looking at the useless hammer she tossed it at the creature’s head as it walked around the truck towards her. The thing ducked under the flying hammer as Faith ran back around the truck and out of sight, the thing however kept coming. Realising that running around the truck all night wasn’t a very good plan, Faith cast about for a new weapon.

Kicking, punching and hitting the thing with a hammer hadn’t worked, Faith considered that her chances of finding a chainsaw where about nil. Changing direction as the creature doubled back on her, she noticed a couple of gas tanks in the corner of the bay; of course Faith grinned as she ran towards them, gas cutters! Searching in her pocket for her lighter (she’d given up smoking, but still carried her lighter) she pulled it out and quickly turned on the oxygen tap.

Picking up the cutting torch as the creature came rapidly towards her, Faith flicked her lighter in front of the torch’s nozzle. Nothing happen! The thing was almost on top of her by now; it raised its thorn covered hand to bring it crashing down on her head. Instinctively, Faith pressed a lever on the torch that was positioned under her palm; she heard the gas start to hiss from the nozzle and flicked the wheel of her Zippo once again.

This time a long smoky flame burst from the nozzle of the torch, the flame washed over the creature’s chest drawing a startled roar from the thing’s mouth. The creature threw up its arms instinctively to protect its head and face as Faith forced it back as far as the torch’s rubber hoses would let her. For a moment Faith and the thing stared at each other in deadlock. Faith unable to advance kept the torch up with a small flame burning at the end of the nozzle ready to bathe the creature in fire if it attempted to advance. The creature, unwilling to let its prey escape stood just outside the range of Faith’s flame thrower. Just as she was wondering if there was enough gas in the cylinder to keep the creature at bay all night the flame went out.

“CRAP!” Cursed Faith as she threw down the torch, turned and sprinted towards the door leading to the corridor.

Heaving the door open, Faith threw herself into the corridor beyond and slammed the door closed behind her. Keeping the door closed by leaning on it, she felt the thing crash into it trying to force it open.

“Freaking, single minded, fucker,” Faith muttered as she slid the bolts at the top and bottom of the door; that should hold it, she thought.

Backing away from the door, Faith saw the centre of the door bulge as she heard wood start to splinter. Cursing under her breath, she turned and started to run along the corridor. As she got to the first junction leading to the main part of the base, she heard the door give up the unequal struggle as the creature burst through it and into the corridor.

Watching as the thing came down the corridor towards her, Faith looked about frantically for a weapon; again there were no handy chainsaws or flame throwers. She turned to continue her retreat and bumped right into Dawn and an RAF guy coming down the corridor towards her.

Before Faith could yell a warning the creature appeared at the junction behind her. Dawn dodged to one side letting Faith stumble past her; she dragged her pistol from the waist band of her jeans and brought the weapon up. Aiming for the thing’s head she pulled the trigger.

The pistol sounded like a cannon going off in the narrow confines of the passageway. Her slug hit the creature high in the chest having little effect, Dawn fired again…and again, and again! The bullets struck the creature hitting it all over its upper body and forcing it back a couple of paces. The RAF man brought his assault rifle up to his shoulder, aimed and fired a long burst into the thing.

The noise of the rifle firing beat against Faith and Dawn’s ears as hot brass cases hit the floor and bounced off the walls. The more powerful rifle bullets struck the creature blasting off chunks of its body and knocking it to the ground. All too soon the RAF man had to stop firing and change magazines. Taking advantage of the pause, the creature climbed to its feet. For a moment it seemed undecided as to whether it should continue its attack or retreat.

Dawn helped it to make up its mind by shooting it five or six more times and almost blowing it off is feet again. The creature scrambled across the floor towards the junction, just as the RAF man brought up his rifle ready to fire. Once again the corridor was filled with the sound of firing as the RAF man fired a long burst at the thing forcing it around the corner and back towards the maintenance bay.

Hearing the creature run towards the vehicle bay the three humans gave chase, they were just in time for the rifleman to fire a short burst at the creature as it disappeared back into the bay. Moments later they heard a door being smashed open. By the time they got to the bay the creature was nowhere to be seen.

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

7.

The bodies of Olsen and Voorhees lay on the floor of the canteen covered with a rain cape. Their feet stuck out from under the cape; Dawn could see that one of the men had lost a shoe and his big toe was sticking out through a hole in his sock.

“You okay, kid?” Faith sat down on the table next to Dawn.

“Yeah,” Dawn sighed softly, “I’m fine, you?”

“Nothing that can’t be put right,” Faith flexed her bandaged hand and smiled, “remind me never to punch a tree, okay?”

“Noted,” Dawn smiled wanly and nodded her head, “tree punching strictly off the list of things to do.”

“If I could have your attention,” Sally Chapman stood in front of the assembled scientists and RAF personnel, “I’ve made my examination of Doctors Olsen and Voorhees; while I remind everyone that I’m not a pathologist and I’ve not been able to do a proper autopsy the cause of death is fairly obvious.” Chapman looked around at all the faces watching her, “Death was caused by exsanguination due to them having had their throats cut.”

“Exsanguination means having their blood drained,” Dawn whispered to Faith.

“Hey,” Faith gave Dawn a rather hurt look, “I know what exsanguination means.”

“Sorry,” Dawn apologised.

“Yes,” Hendry walked out to stand next to Dr Chapman, “thank-you Doctor. We found Doctors Olsen and Voorhees hanging by their ankles in an old croft about half a mile away…they were hanging over this!”

There was a surprised gasp as an airman wheeled a trolley out in front of the scientists and removed the sheet that was covering something on top of the trolley. Revealed for all to see was a large metal tray of earth from which grew a dozen or more strange plants.

“Now I’ve had Doctor Wilson examine these plants,” explained Hendry with ill concealed anger, “and he’s confident that these are the young of our alien friend!”

“You can’t be sure of that!” Doctor Carrington stepped forward, “This is simply wild speculation, what proof have you that these belong to our visitor.”

“The evidence is irrefutable, doctor,” Wilson stepped forward, “these…” he hesitated as he gestured at the seedlings, “these shoots conform to the cell structure of the alien’s arm. I’m sorry,” he said quietly turning to look Carrington straight in the eye, “there can be no other explanation.”

“But this is preposterous!” Carrington looked around at his fellow scientists for support, “Why would such an intelligent being act in such a way?”

“Because,” Doctor John Chapman stepped forward, “it sees us as nothing more than a food source for its young! You’re a fool and a scoundrel, Carrington!”

“NO!” Carrington cried retreating from Chapman’s blazing eyes, “No, it’s so much wiser than we are, it knows so much more how could it…”

“Because it looks on us as cattle!” Chapman turned away from Carrington and looked at Hendry, “I think I can speak for the real scientists here when I ask; what can we do to help you destroy this menace?”

“Hey!” Faith spoke up from where she sat, “We’ve been saying ‘kill it’ from the get go. Glad to see everybody’s getting’ on board with that.”

“Yes, thank-you for that Ms Lehane,” Hendry turned his head to hide his smile. “First things first,” Hendry gestured to one of his men, “Corporal Barnes, take Doctor Carrington and lock him in his room.”

“SIR!” Corporal Barnes advanced on Carrington and indicated that he should leave the room.

“You won’t get away with this!” Carrington cried as he walked towards the exit, “I’ll see you broken from the service Mr Hendry!”

Still protesting Carrington was led away to his room.

“Its times like this,” Hendry announced quietly, “that I wish we had a proper guardroom.” His little joke appeared to lighten the mood in the room, “First of all I want to make the base secure, this thing has got in once let’s try to keep it out! Ken,” Hendry turned to McPherson, “you’re in charge of that, secure all storm shutters and barricade all the outside doors. Once that’s done start barricading the corridors, we’ll make the canteen here our redoubt. Then I want…”

“SIR!” Pilot Officer Dykes burst into the canteen interrupting Hendry.

“What’s wrong Eddie?”

The female officer was soaking wet and a thin trickle of blood dripped from a cut on her forehead.

“The creature sir!” Dykes collapsed into a chair as Sally Chapman moved forward to treat her wound, “It attacked us while we were working on the mast sir…it took Flight Roberts and Airman Smith.”

“Damn!” Hendry looked as if he could spit nails!

After the excitement of Dykes’ appearance, Hendry set people to work securing the base, after which he walked over to Dawn and Faith.

“What do you want us to do, Flight Loo-tenant?” Dawn asked.

“Stop saying ‘Loo-tenant’ for one,” Hendry smiled, “its Lef-tenant actually.”

“Whatever,” Dawn shrugged, “what can we do?”

“Ms Lehane,” Hendry looked at Faith, “you’ve fought this thing and to be honest I’m surprised you’re still alive. I don’t suppose you noticed any weaknesses.”

“Don’t try punching it,” Faith held up her bandaged hand and gave the officer a wry smile. “I hit it with a hammer which didn’t do much good either.”

“Bullets only blow bits off it,” Dawn pointed out, “and knock it down.”

“It’s fast and strong,” Faith continued, “but I don’t think it’s actually a very good fighter.”

“How so?” Hendry asked.

“It was clumsy and it struck out wildly,” Faith looked at the floor as she searched her mind for useful information, “the only thing that seemed to scare it was fire.”

“Yes of course,” a thoughtful look came over Hendry’s face, “fire. It’s a plant so it’ll burn.”

“Ah, remember,” Dawn held up her hand like she was in school, “wet vegetation doesn’t burn that well, we could cook it.”

“Damn,” the look of hope started to leave Hendry’s face as Dawn dashed cold water on his plan. “Blasted vegetable,” he mused, “how do you cook vegetables?”

“You could boil it,” Dawn suggested hesitantly; she rejected the idea as there probably wasn’t a saucepan big enough, “Um roast it, fry it…”

“HA!” Hendry turned to Dawn grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her on the lips, “Of course!” he let go of Dawn before Faith could hit him. 

“Hey!” Dawn staggered a little as she recovered from her surprise kissing, “Like, whatever happened to British reserve?”

“You may not realise it Ms Summers,” Hendry was looking a lot more confident than he had been a few seconds ago, “but you may have saved us all.”

“I have?” Dawn frowned, “How?”

“We fry the rotter,” Hendry explained; Dawn and Faith were no wiser however. “Look,” Hendry explained, “we set up a trap, lure the creature into it then electrocute it.”

“Cool,” Dawn agreed.

“Hate to rain on your death trap,” Faith said slowly, “a trap needs bait, what ya gonna use.”

“Oh,” Hendry said airily, “I’ll think of something, we could always stake out Carrington.”

0=0=0=0

As almost everybody else was busy sealing up the base, Faith and Dawn found themselves helping Hendry with his trap.

“First of all,” Hendry looked down at a large scale plan of the base, “we’ve got to decide where the alien is going to get in.”

“We decide?” Dawn queried uncertainly, “I thought that the thing could go pretty much where it pleased.”

“How about there,” Faith pointed to the vehicle maintenance bay.

“Ah, yes,” Hendry nodded his head, “it’s got in there once, so you’re thinking it might try there again.”

“Not something I’d do if I was tryin’ to get in,” Faith pointed out, “but like I say it didn’t seem that combat savvy when we met.”

“Good point Miss Lehane,” Hendry turned away from the table and its map and walked over to a telephone on the wall.

Picking up the receiver and pressing a couple of buttons, Hendry spoke into the phone. His voice echoed around the base asking Mr McPherson to call him in the Mess Hall. Replacing the receiver, Hendry waited a few moments, the phone rang and he picked it up. Hearing Hendry tell McPherson not to barricade the maintenance bay, Faith smiled now she’d be able to fight this thing again and this time she’d kick its ass.

“What we’ll do,” Hendry pointed to the plan again once he was off the phone, “is make it look as if we didn’t have time to secure the maintenance bay. We wouldn’t want the sod to think it’s a trap!”

Nodding their heads in agreement, Dawn and Faith shared a quiet grin.

“Then we’ll block off these corridors,” Hendry made marks on the plan with a red pencil, “here, here and here. I’ll post men with petrol bombs and fire extinguishers to stop it from forcing its way past the barricades. We’ll set up our trap just about…” Hendry studied the map for a moment or two until he jabbed at it with his pencil, “there!”

“So,” Dawn wanted to know, “how do we build this carrot cooking appliance?”

“We’ll need some metal plates or something that we can pass a current through for the thing to stand on,” Hendry gazed unseeingly at the wall for a moment, “and lots of heavy duty power cable.”

“Of course,” Dawn began, “you just happen to have these things lying around?”

“My dear Ms Summers,” Hendry gave Dawn a slightly pitying look, “this is the RAF, of course we have things like this, ‘just lying around’ as you say. Most of it’s in the maintenance bay.”

“Then we better go and fetch it,” Faith pointed out, “before carrot-boy pays us another visit.” 

“Yes of course,” agreed Hendry, “if you two ladies wouldn’t mind giving me a hand we’ll get on with it right now.”

0=0=0=0

“Faith!” Dawn called as she struggled with a roll of chain-link fencing, “Like, give me a hand would you?”

“Sure,” Faith walked over and picked up the roll of fencing easily, “where d’ya want it?”

“Careful, Faith,” whispered Dawn as she looked around the maintenance bay, “I don’t want to have to explain your super-strength…put it on the cart.”

Pointing to a heavy duty hand cart, Dawn steadied the load trying to make it look as if she was helping Faith carry the fencing.

“Is that it?” Dawn asked as the put the fencing down.

“Nah,” Faith wiped dirt and oil from her hands with a piece of rag, “we need some heavy duty crocodile clips…there should be some in that locker.”

Pointing to the grey steel locker in question, Faith walked over and pulled open the door; she stepped back just in time to let the body fall to the floor without hitting her.

“Crap!” gasped Dawn as she walked over to stand next to Faith.

“Yeah,” agreed Faith slowly, “ya know who it is?”

“I think it’s that guy, Flight Roberts,” Dawn pointed to the stripes on the man’s ripped and bloody pullover.

“Guess he won’t be getting that radio mast working any time soon,” Faith observed, “Here,” she bent to take hold of the dead man’s shoulders, “help me put him over here.”

Between them they moved the dead man over in front of the truck and covered him with a ground sheet from out of the truck’s cab.

“You know,” Dawn gazed down at the dead man, “I’ve noticed no one’s suggest that we just bug out of here.”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed as she joined Dawn standing over the body.

“I mean,” Dawn continued, “we could jump in the vehicles and be totally out of here, easy.”

“And leave this thing to chomp its way through the local population?” Faith glanced over at Dawn.

“They’ve been evacuated, right?” Dawn asked uncertainly.

“Only to the south end of the island,” Faith pointed out as she turned away from the body, “come on, we’ve gotta fight this thing here. If we leave it alone and it breeds what do we do then?”

“Nuke it from orbit,” Dawn grinned, “it’s the only way to be sure.”

“Yeah,” Faith laughed as she continued her search for heavy duty crocodile clips, “it’d make our life a whole lot easier.”

0=0=0=0

Faith paid out the heavy cable as Dawn pulled the handcart along the corridor. They’d eventually found the clips and taken everything back to Hendry at the ambush site. Their next task was to run the cable from the ambush site through the corridors to the emergency generator room.

“How much further?” Dawn asked as she pulled on the cart.

“Not much more,” Faith struggled with the cable as it appeared to come alive and try to strangle her; after a short fight Faith subdued the cable. “This generator place must be just ‘round the…Carrington!?”

“Just round the Carrington?” Dawn stopped pulling on the cart to look at Faith, following her eye line, Dawn turned to see Carrington standing in the corridor blocking their way. “Hey! You’re supposed to be locked up,” it was only then that she noticed the pistol in the man’s hand, “Oh shit!”

“Hands up! Both of you,” demanded Carrington jerking the pistol in the direction of Faith and Dawn. “What are you doing?”

“Hey,” Faith wasn’t going to be intimidated by a jerk with a pistol, “what the fuck are ya doin’?”

“Yeah!” agreed Dawn who took courage from her girlfriend’s reaction, “You’re supposed to be locked up and more importantly, unarmed!”

“I can’t allow you harm the creature,” as he spoke Carrington’s eyes darted from Dawn to Faith and back again; his gun hand shook alarmingly making Dawn feel nervous again.

“Ya what?” Faith took a step towards Carrington and readied herself to pounce.

“This is such an important find,” Carrington tried to explain, “perhaps the most important discovery in the history of all mankind.”

“Yeah,” Faith took another half step towards the scientist, “right we’ve discovered a vampire carrot.”

“NO!” Carrington pointed the gun at Faith’s middle, “No it’s so much more than that. Don’t you understand? The things it can teach us, it could open up the entire universe to us, it behoves us all to ensure it survives.”

“Right,” Faith replied mockingly as she edged closer to the man, “somehow I don’t think it’s in a teaching mood. I think it just wants to chow down on us until there’s enough little vampire carrots all grown up so it can take over the world!”

“No!” tears of frustration trickled down Carrington’s face, “You don’t understand. Of course some will have to be sacrificed for the greater good, but the things it can teach us in return…what are a few thousand even a few million lives compared to that?”

“You want to feed people to this thing,” Dawn called aghast, “in exchange for scientific advances?”

“Of course,” Carrington’s eyes flicked to stare insanely at Dawn, “you can’t make an omelette with out breaking eggs…”

This was Faith’s signal, if there was one thing she’d learnt over the years it was this; if ever a mad scientist did the omelette thing, he or she needed to die. Faith pounced, she went straight for Carrington not bothering trying to take the gun away from him, she’d beat him down before he’d be able to fire anyway. Her fist came into contact with Carrington’s jaw just as the pistol went off more by accident than design. Feeling the bullet whistle by her ear, Faith struck the scientist another blow this time in the stomach. Standing back she watched as Carrington sailed through the air to land heavily on the floor several yards away.

“Hey,” Faith smiled as she looked down at Carrington’s unconscious body, “am I good or what?” Turning to look at Dawn the smile left her face as she screamed, “DAWN!!!”

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

8.

“Don’t fuss so, Faith,” Dawn sat on the edge of the treatment couch in the medical centre as Dr Chapman tied a bandage around her arm, “it’s only a scratch.”

“I think it’s slightly more than a scratch Dawn,” Dr Chapman finished applying the dressing and stood back to admire her handiwork, “an inch or two to the left and there could have been serious muscle damage.”

“But there wasn’t,” Dawn pointed out.

“But ya could’a been seriously hurt Dawnie,” Faith reaffirmed, “I should’a killed the jerk straight off.”

“Where is Dr Carrington anyway?” Dr Chapman asked as she cleared away the tools of her trade.

“He managed to run off,” Faith sat down on the couch next to Dawn and put her arm around the younger woman, “Hendry and his boys are looking for him.”

“Hmmm,” Dr Chapman looked from, Faith to Dawn, “yes I’m inclined to agree with you, under the circumstances having a mad scientist running around the place probably isn’t the best idea.”

“Yeah,” Faith helped Dawn to her feet, “I won’t make the same mistake twice,” turning from Dawn to the doctor, Faith asked, “we good to go?”

“Yes,” Dr Chapman smiled and then looked at Dawn, “I’d lay off the weight lifting for a week or two, give that ‘scratch’ time to heal.”

“Sure thing,” Dawn nodded, “no weight lifting.”

“Good,” Chapman smiled once more, “off you go then.”

0=0=0=0

Watching the two young women leave her surgery, Sally Chapman went back to cleaning up the pieces of blood stained dressing and throwing away the disposable instruments she’d used to sew up Dawn’s arm, she smiled to herself; those two were so much more than work colleagues. The way the older woman, Faith had fussed over Dawn was quite unmistakeable, they were deeply in love. Frowning a little Dr Chapman wondered if the CIA approved of ‘relationships’ between their agents.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, I suppose,” she said to herself as she closed the last cupboard.

Walking to the door she turned once more to check that everything was where it should be; she was just about to switch off the light when she heard what sounded like scratching coming from the wall.

“What the devil’s…?” Sally Chapman screamed as the scratching turned to a ripping crashing noise and the creature burst into the medical centre.

Beating desperately at the wood-like hand that grabbed her around the throat, Sally tried to free herself from the monster’s vice-like grip. Slowly the creature lifted her off the floor as it held her against the wall. Sally’s attempts to free herself got weaker and weaker as the blood was prevented from getting to her brain. Slowly the world turned black as Sally Chapman lost consciousness. Feeling its victim go limp in its hand, the creature threw the doctor’s flaccid body over its shoulder. Without a rearward glance it turned and climbed out of the hole it had made in the wall, back out into the dark rain swept night and on towards its lair.

0=0=0=0

“I don’t need you to help me walk, Faith,” Dawn looked at her girlfriend and smiled; Faith the so-called ‘dark-slayer’ looked like a kicked puppy, Dawn relented, “Okay,” she sighed, “if it makes you happy…”

“Yeah, right,” Faith tightened her grip on Dawn’s waist, “I feel responsible.”

“Look,” Dawn did her best to sound firm, “the bullet hardly touched me. It wasn’t even a through and through, more of a slight furrow really, painful but not…”

“You’re in pain!?” Faith stopped and looked at Dawn in panic, “I’ll go and get…”

“No!” Dawn grinned, “I’ll be fine, just get me to the canteen and I’ll have a cup of tea and everything will be okay again, okay?”

“Okay,” Faith didn’t sound convinced, she frowned at Dawn, “you sure you wanna drink that tea again?”

“Yeah,” Dawn nodded her head, “I think I must be getting immune to it or it burnt off my taste buds,” just at that moment all the lights went out, “now what?”

0=0=0=0

Wiping the rain out of his eyes, Dr Carrington realised he should have wrecked as much of the generator as he could before the lights went out. Now he’d have to do what he could in the dark. Picking up the heavy engineer’s hammer, Carrington attacked the generator's controls smashing them to useless junk. He’d been surprised to find the generator unguarded, that fool Hendry must have forgotten.

After ripping out fuel pipes and electric leads, Carrington was fairly certain that no one would get the generator back into commission anytime soon. He’d overheard two of the RAF soldiers talking about a plan to trap and kill the creature using electricity. He’d only just escaped the clutches of that terrible CIA woman and her friend and he thought he might have killed the younger woman. He’d managed to get a shot off when the older of the two attacked him. The bullet had missed his assailant but had hit the other woman; the effect had been almost as good. The dark-haired agent had let him go to help her friend and he’d managed to escape down the corridor. He’d found his way into an unlocked room and climbed out of the window into the night.

Whatever happened he must stop the military fools from destroying the creature; Carrington knew that if he could talk to the creature he’d be able to find out what it wanted and learn its secrets. The discoveries he’d be able to make if only he could understand a fraction of what the creature knew. He’d be world famous, there’d be no more arguments about his research methods or how he used other people’s research finding. So, if some people had to die to feed the creature, so be it! Their sacrifice would help the people of the world fly to the stars and he, Dr Arthur Carrington would lead the way. 

Walking back to the door, Carrington looked out into the night he had made even darker now he’d caused the base’s lights to go out. The wind howled between the huts as the rain lashed down in never ending torrents. He’d need to find shelter, he couldn’t stay here, Hendry would send someone to investigate why the lights had gone out. Stepping out into the open, Carrington winced as the full force of the storm hit him. Shoulders hunched against the rain, Carrington turned towards the vehicle hanger. It was basically a roof on wooden supports but he should be able to get into one of the vehicles and shelter from the worst of the rain. As he stepped away from the generator house, he never noticed the long inhuman arm reach out of the dark until it was too late. Carrington gave a short, muffled cry of alarm as he was dragged off into the night.

0=0=0=0

“What the bloody hell is going on?” demanded Hendry as he burst into the canteen, pistol in hand; he was accompanied by two airmen with rifles across their backs and petrol bombs in the hands.

“Looks like the generator’s out,” replied PO Dykes as she tried to organise the few remaining scientists into something that didn’t resemble the last mad rush for lifeboats on the Titanic.

“Damn it!” Hendry shone his torch around the room; apart from Dykes there was Corporal Barnes and Doctors Chapman, Wilson and Stern. “Ms Dykes, take a couple of men and maybe one of these gentlemen,” he gestured to the scientists, “and see if you can find out what’s wrong with the generator.”

“Sir!” Dykes grabbed hold of Wilson’s arm and dragged him out of the room behind her.

“Corporal Barnes,” Hendry turned to the NCO, “in the mean time see if you can find some candles or something.”

“Sir!” Barnes disappeared through a door to start his search for illumination.

“The lights have gone out!” Faith announced unnecessarily as she and Dawn stumbled through the door behind Hendry.

“I noticed,” Hendry turned to Faith and raised his eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Faith stopped and realised what she’d said was pretty stupid, “ya know why?”

“Ms Dykes is investigating,” Hendry went and sat down on a table top, he noticed Dawn’s bloody sleeve and the bandage around her arm. “Are you alright Miss Summers?”

“I’m fine,” Dawn smiled at the man’s concern, “what do we do now?”

With the generator not working their plan to electrocute the creature was dead in the water.

“I expect a fuel lines blocked or something like that,” Hendry sighed as he massaged his eyes, “if it's more serious…” Hendry paused while he thought through his options. “Damn it all,” he said more to himself than to anyone else in the room.

The situation looked grim; with no power he couldn’t fry the creature. He couldn’t call for help because the radio mast was down and the landlines were out, probably washed away in the storm. Even if he could call for help none would arrive until the storm abated enough for helicopters to fly. He was fighting an enemy that he didn’t know anything about, other than its hostility, with ineffectual weapons.

“I think the most sensible course of action,” he looked at Faith and Dawn as if he was looking for their approval, “would be to evacuate the base. Drive 'round to the ferry, maybe hold-up in one of the stone buildings. We could use the phone there to call for reinforcements, then we just wait out the storm.”

“What about the creature?” Dawn wanted to know.

“Oh I doubt it’ll get far across country,” Hendry observed, “the island’s mostly peat bog and there’s nowhere to go for miles around.”

“Hey,” Faith shrugged, “that thing seemed to move okay after it had one arm ripped off. What makes ya think it can’t get to that town south of here.”

“By morning?” Hendry asked, the CIA agent had a point they’d little idea about the creature’s capabilities. “Whatever,” Hendry looked at the two airmen who were standing by the door, “Lance Corporal Oldfield, go dig out some of the chaps and go round to the vehicle hanger and bring half-a-dozen of the rovers around to the front of the block…and if you see Mr McPherson on your travels ask him to see me here.”

With a crisp ‘Sir!’, the two airmen left the room, Dawn heard the sound of their boots recede down the corridor.

It looked to her as if Hendry had already decided to abandon the camp, she couldn’t really blame him. He hardly had any forces at his disposal, his weapons were next to useless and there was no power or communications. The most sensible thing to do was leave; of course Faith and herself would stay behind and destroy the monster.

“Excuse me,” Dawn looked up to see Dr John Chapman standing next to her, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my wife have you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dawn smiled, “she was in the medical centre, she was just cleaning up…” the smile slowly faded from Dawn’s lips; Sally Chapman should have finished what she was doing and got back to the canteen by now. “Faith!” she called, “go back to the medical room and check on Sally would you?”

“Sure,” Faith nodded, catching Dawn’s unspoken fear as she got up and headed for the door.

0=0=0=0

Waking up to the sound of her blood pounding in her ears, Sally Chapman thought for a moment that the world had been turned up-side-down. It took a moment or two for her to realise it was her that was the wrong way up and the world was where it should be. Blinking her eyes she looked around at her surrounding; she appeared to be hanging from a rafter in an old stone barn or some other out building. She could hear the storm still howling outside and she could see puddles of water on the earthen floor from the leaks in the roof.

Her ankles were securely tied with rope to the rafters above and her hands were tied painfully tight behind her back. Looking down, she found she was hanging over an area of broken up earth, there appeared to be what looked like very odd plants growing up towards her. Each plant seemed to consist of a large pod, like a giant marrow with large fleshy leaves sprouting from under it.

By jerking her shoulders, Dr Chapman made herself spin around a little so she could see what was in the rest of the barn. She gasped in horror as her eyes fell on Dr Carrington who was hanging from the same rafter a yard or so along from her. Under the scientist grew more plants. Just as she was beginning to realise the full horror of what was going on, she slowly spun away from Carrington and saw the creature stride towards her. Giving an involuntary scream, Sally watched as the creature brushed past her spinning her so she was once more facing Carrington.

She screamed again as the creature slashed open Carrington’s throat with the sharp thorn-like growths on its knuckles. She watched in horrified fascination as Carrington’s body spasmed as his blood gushed from his neck, over his face and pattered like obscene rain onto the ground and over the plants. The creature watched in satisfaction as the blood ‘watered’ the plants below. Once again Sally screamed, this time in panic as the creature turned to her, raised its hand and brought it swiftly down and across her throat.

0=0=0=0

“Hendry!” Faith rushed back into the canteen, “I think the creature’s got Sally Chapman!”

“What?” Hendry stood up from where he was drinking a cup of tea with Dawn, “How!?”

“Looks like it came in through the wall,” Faith grabbed hold of John Chapman as he tried to rush from the room and look for his wife, she forced him into a chair.

“Through the wall?” Hendry looked in shock at Faith for a moment, “That settles it, we abandon the base now! Come on,” he called heading for the door to the reception lobby, “we’re getting out of here now!”

“No we won’t, sir,” a rather wet Lance Corporal Oldfield burst into the room, he stood for a moment catching his breath and dripping onto the floor, “someone’s buggered up all the vehicles.”

“WHAT!?” Hendry turned to face the man his face going hideously pale in the flickering candle light.

“That’s right, sir,” Oldfield continued, “smashed up all the engines, trucks an’ all.”

“Just keeps getting better an’ better,” observed Faith.

“We might be able to get a couple of them working in the morning when it gets light, sir.” Lance Corporal Oldfield shrugged under his rain cape and waited for his officer to come up with a new plan.

“Right!” Hendry, pulled back his shoulders and looked around at all the people who were looking at him expecting him to get them out of danger. “First we get everyone back in here, then we…”

Walking over to Faith, Dawn tuned out whatever Hendry was saying. She didn’t care what the officer was planning the time had long past for herself and Faith to take matters into their own hands.

“Faith?” Dawn whispered, “Time to go and deal with this thing once and for all.”

“Sure,” agreed Faith, “but ya mind telling me how?”

“Come back to our room,” Dawn looked around everyone’s attention was focused on Hendry, they could slip away and no one would notice. “I’ve got my laptop I should be able to contact Willow see if she can help.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Faith agreed as they slipped from the room.

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

9.

“Dawnie!” Willow stared out of the computer screen her eyes wide with shock and concern, “You’re wounded!”

“It’s only a scratch,” Dawn resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“But…” Willow relaxed, closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath before saying, “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Dawn repeated.

“Yeah,” Willow nodded, “Kennedy said that I should stop treating you like a kid and you know she’s right. It’s just that it’s difficult, y’know?”

“Look, Willow,” Dawn looked up to where Faith was pushing one of the steel lockers in front of the door, “we need your help…”

While Faith did her best to fortify the room Dawn explained what had been happening over the last few days.

0=0=0=0

Standing in one of the corridors near the vehicle maintenance bay, Pilot Officer McPherson turned to face Corporal Barnes.

“Where’s the rest of them, Corporal?” McPherson ran his eye over the half dozen men that stood behind Barnes.

“That’s all I could find, Boss,” Barnes shifted uneasily, “Couldn’t find the others anywhere.”

“Damn-it-all, Corporal,” McPherson stopped himself from saying anything else, after all it wasn’t Barnes’ fault, “oh-well this’ll have to do.”

Inspecting his reduced force McPherson wondered if the dozen or so petrol bombs and rifles his men carried would be enough to, if not to kill the creature, then hold it off until help arrived.

“Sir?” Barnes stepped forward, “I was wondering, just how bad were the vehicles damaged?”

“Pretty bad,” replied McPherson, “Why’d you ask?”

“Well sir, Nobby here,” Barnes gestured to an airman standing behind him, “says the truck in the bay is just waiting for spare parts.”

“So?” McPherson wondered where his one surviving NCO was going with this.

“Sir,” Barnes silently cursed the inability of junior officers from seeing the bleedin’ obvious, “she says we might be able to take the spares from the wrecked trucks and use them to fix the truck in the bay.”

“Good god, Barnes!” McPherson felt happier then than he had for a long time, “Let’s go and secure the maintenance bay, Leading Aircraftsman Clerk can see what she needs to fix the truck. Then with a bit of luck we can get out of here.” McPherson searched for the name of one of his men, “Um, Neals, go find the Flight Lieutenant and ask him to come and see me in the maintenance bay.”

0=0=0=0

“A plant you say?” Willow frowned out of the computer screen, “I-I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything to fight a plant with…have you tried weed-killer?”

“Hey, Willow,” Dawn snapped, “this is dangerous it’s already killed four people that we know of, probably more.”

“Sorry,” Willow looked distracted, “umm, you sure you don’t want reinforcements, I’m, like, knee deep in slayers down here.”

“Red,” Faith elbowed Dawn out of the way so she could be seen on the computer’s camera, “they’d never arrive in time and what would they do when they got here? I can’t take this thing down, so how are more slayers gonna help?”

“Yeah,” Willow nodded miserably, Faith had a point, “look, I’ll need to do some research…”

“Yeah, okay,” Dawn pushed the hair back from her face, “but don’t take too long, huh? We’re on borrowed time up here.”

“Sure,” Willow looked extremely worried, “I’ll get back to you within the hour.”

0=0=0=0

Leading Aircraftsman Nobby Clerk couldn’t quite believe her luck. Working under the light of several torches she’d checked out the parts lying on the ground sheet in front of the broken down truck. Then, after a quick inspection of the truck itself she’d climbed down off the box she’d been standing on and turned to face her officer.

“We’re in luck, Sir,” she smiled as she wiped her oily hands on a piece of rag.

“If we are, Clerk,” McPherson sighed, “it’ll be the first time today. What’s the news?”

“We just need a new fuel pump and a battery,” Nobby announced, “and I can have us outta here in an hour, Sir.”

“Bloody-hell Clerk,” McPherson grinned down at the short young woman, “that is good news.”

Turning to call for Corporal Barnes, McPherson was just in time to see the roughly barricaded door at the back of bay burst open as the creature surged into the bay. Half a second later some one fired a long burst at the creature and knocked it off its feet.

“QUICK!” Yelled McPherson, “Use a petrol bomb!”

There was the sound of breaking glass and suddenly the creature was surrounded by a pool of liquid fire. It roared as it beat at the flames on its clothes and body before it tried to stand up again.

“HIT IT AGAIN!” Shouted McPherson.

There was another long burst of rifle fire as a yet another petrol bomb exploded right in the creatures face.

“GOT ‘EM!” McPherson cheered, however his celebration was short lived as another creature came through the door and charged towards the bay’s defenders.

0=0=0=0

Faith started as her ears picked up the sound of firing, it sounded like it was coming from the maintenance bay.

“I better go look,” she told Dawn as she started to move the locker away from the door.

“And do what?” Dawn asked, “Do you have a chainsaw that you’ve not told me about?”

“No but…” Faith gave Dawn a perplexed look.

“No ‘buts’,” Dawn continued to stare at the blank computer screen, “we wait for Willow to get back to us, then we might stand a chance of fighting this thing.”

0=0=0=0

“FALL BACK!” Barnes yelled, he’d no idea where Mr McPherson was and there were far too many of these things to fight.

He fired a long burst at a creature and saw it go down, someone threw a bomb and then he turned and ran for the exit that led to the rest of the base. Slamming the remains of the door between the bay and the corridor he looked at his much reduced force. There was himself, Nobby and a couple of guys from the base staff whose names he wasn’t sure of.

“Bombs?” he asked, the two base men held up a petrol bomb each. So far they were the only things that seemed to worry the creatures, but two weren’t going to hold them up for long. “You!” Barnes took the bomb off the shorter of the base guys, “go find the Flight Lieutenant an’ tell ‘im what’s goin’ on.”

The airman ran off down the darkened corridor leaving the three RAF personnel standing by the door. Just as the messenger skidded around the corner of the corridor there was a terrific crash as something big and heavy hit the other side of the door. The wooden door started to splinter and bulge under the assault.

“MOVE!” Barnes started to push his people away from the door.

They were half way to the corner when the door shattered and was replaced by two growling creatures. Barnes lit the bomb in his hand and threw it at the creatures. The bottle broke and the plant creatures were covered in fire. They roared as they staggered away from the flame, but their place was taken by a whole crowd of creatures that pushed and jostled each other in their eagerness to get at the humans. Another petrol bomb exploded slowing the vegetable tide for a second.

“RUN!” Barnes screamed as he pushed Nobby in front of him and they clattered along the flame lit corridor.

0=0=0=0

“Dawn?” Willow’s concerned face peered out of the computer screen.”

“What have you got?” Dawn glanced nervously at the barricaded door; there’d been a lot of shooting a few minutes ago and now there was silence, she had the uneasy feeling that it wasn’t because they’d won.

“Look,” Willow looked as if she was going to burst into tears, “I can’t find anything about how to fight plant monsters, but…”

“But?” Dawn looked at Faith then back at the screen, “Willow we’re all out of options here we’re…”

“SHHH!” Faith held up her hand for silence, “There’s something in the corridor…its not human.”

Quickly blowing out the few candles around the room, Dawn stared at the door and then remembered how the creature had come through the wall in the medical centre.

“Okay,” whispered Faith, “its gone.”

“Look,” Willow looked out of the screen as if she could see something in the darkened room, who knows maybe she could. “I did find one thing, it’s a spell called the ‘Curse of Manabozho’. It’s a Native American spell, as near as I can work out Manabozho means ‘Big Rabbit’.”

“Big Rabbit?” Dawn asked aghast, “What are you talking about, just how big a rabbit?”

“Oh, ‘big’,” Willow assured Dawn.

“So what does it do?” Faith butted in, “We’re running out of time here.”

“It’ll transform one of you…” Willow started to explain.

“That’ll be me,” announced Faith.

“…into the spirit of Manabozho,” Willow continued hardly missing a beat, “it should endow you with the ‘Power of the Big Rabbit’ and you’ll be able to fight this thing.”

“That sounds great,” Dawn told the computer screen, “erm, it is like reversible?”

“Totally,” Willow nodded her head.

“Okay what do we need,” Dawn looked around the bare little room, “coz I’m telling you we’ve got nothing here.”

“You can chant, right?” Willow asked.

“Sure,” agreed Dawn.

“You’ve got candles,” mused Willow, “have you got anything you can use as a drum?”

Looking around the room, neither Faith nor Dawn could see a drum.

“HA!” Faith stepped over to the wash basin and picked up the small plastic rubbish bin sitting on the floor underneath it. “This do?” she held the bin up in front of the computer.

“It’ll have to,” Willow nodded her head, “now sit on the floor in front of the computer and…” Willow looked as if she’d remembered something else, “Either of you got a lipstick or something? Dawn you’ll need to paint some symbols on Faith and Faith you might want to take your clothes off.”

“Why?” Faith slowly started to pull her jersey over her head.

“Well,” Willow smirked a little, “this spirit thing is big like ‘Hulk’ big, it’ll shred your clothes.”

Moments later, Faith and Dawn where sitting cross legged in front of the computer screen. Faith was naked and had various native American symbols drawn in lipstick on her face and body. Dawn clutched the rubbish bin between her legs.

“Okay, Dawnie,” Willow said, “start with a simple ‘BOOM, boom, boom, boom, beat,” Dawn started to pick out a beat on her ersatz drum, “that’s great,” smiled Willow, “now both of you chant after me…”

0=0=0=0

Slamming the door behind him, Scotty, the reporter from the Glasgow Herald, leant against the door and tried to catch his breath. He closed his eyes and saw the events of the last few minutes being replayed in his head. He’d been sitting in the canteen with Chapman, Wilson and Stern. There’d been one RAF man left to guard the place as Hendry and all the others had run off towards the firing.

The reporter and the scientists had been told to get down under the tables as the firing got closer. Scotty shivered as he remembered hearing screams and the sound and smell of burning, the hideous roaring of the creature as the RAF people tried to shoot it. He’d peeped over the top of the up turned table he was hiding behind as Hendry and a few others burst into the room.

The next few minutes were a confusing kaleidoscope of flashing lights and loud noise as rifles were fired, petrol bombs exploded and men screamed. He saw the creature burst through the door and be hit by a petrol bomb. Scotty had just been about to cheer when he saw another creature, then another and another burst into the room. Quickly the defenders were overwhelmed as they scattered in front of the alien horde.

Amid the screams and cries, the firing and the whooshing of flames as petrol exploded lighting the room enough for him to see blood splattered on the walls. Scotty ran; he ran through the kitchen where he found a door, dragging it open he threw himself into the room beyond to find himself in the pitch dark.

Panicked eyes tried to penetrate the darkness of the room. Fumbling for the door handle, Scotty found the key was still in the lock, he turned it and stepped away from the door. Feeling his way across the room, Scotty knew that he had to find a way out of this trap. The door would hold up the creature for about ten seconds and then he’d be plant food. If he could find the window perhaps he could get outside and make a run for it across country.

Stumbling into the wall on the other side of the room, Scotty’s hands searched frantically for the window he knew must be there somewhere. Just as his hand came in contact with what felt like a handle to open the window the door behind him exploded into splinters. Screaming in fear, Scotty turned to see the figure of one of the creatures standing silhouetted in the flames from the canteen. Scotty screamed as the creature reached for him and dragged him away.

0=0=0=0

Pilot Officer Dykes looked at the pistol in her hand and shook her head, she knew it was basically useless against these things but holding it made her feel better. She’d heard the fight rage on the other side of the door to her radio room. She’d heard everything go quiet and realised that the forces of humanity had met with a serious defeat. There was no need for her to unlock that door and stick her head out to check, she had no intention of becoming breakfast for that thing.

Purposefully striding across the room she holstered her pistol and started to wind-up the storm shutters. It was time to put some of that expensive survival and adventure training she’d received to the test. Smiling to herself as she climbed out the window, PO Dykes realised what she was going to do. She was ‘going for help’ like the good sensible ‘coward’ she was and coincidentally probably saving her stunningly attractive skin!

0=0=0=0

“Wow!” Dawn breathed quietly as she gazed up at the transformed Faith.

“Did it work?” Willow called out of the computer.

“Yeah,” Dawn turned the computer around so Willow could see.

“Gee!” Gasped Willow, “That sure worked!”

Standing looking down at Dawn, Faith felt a great anger fill her mind and body plus just a hint of hunger; she howled as the spirit of the Big Rabbit filled her body and soul.

Dawn lay on her back and covered her ears with her hands. Faith’s body had grown two, maybe three times its normal size. She was so tall now she couldn’t stand up straight in the room, her body was covered in short, sandy coloured fur and her hands and feet looked like great claw edged paws twice the size of dinner plates. Long floppy ears hung down on either side of her head, which Dawn absently thought looked quite cute, but there under Faith’s black, twitching nose was a mouth that contained great teeth like small tombstones, those did not look at all cute. Giving another loud howl, Faith turned and sort of bounced through the wall into the corridor outside leaving a huge, Faith/rabbit shaped hole behind her. Climbing to her feet, Dawn looked out through the hole into the smoke filled corridor.

“Go Bunny-Faith go!” she cheered quietly.

0=0=0=0


	10. Chapter 10

10.

**The Epilogue.**

Stepping through the hole in the wall of her room, Dawn stood in the corridor and listened to the silence. Shivering a little, but not from the cold, she made her way along the darkened passageway her boots crunching on broken glass as she made her way between pieces of smashed up furniture. Turning the corner at the end of the corridor she stopped and gazed at the scene of destruction that greeted her eyes.

In front of her the burnt and broken remains of one of the base’s huts stood and dripped in the thin early morning light. The smell of wet ash came to her nose as she looked up through the hole in the ruined roof to see a clear blue sky. It was only then that she realised it must be morning and the storm was over. If it was morning, and the weather was good the authorities would be sending helicopters and troops to find out what had happen at Gloup.

Realising the full importance of these thoughts, Dawn immediately started to search for Faith and any survivors that there might be. Having been turned into what was, for all intents and purposes, a giant rabbit, Faith had hopped through the wall and gone in search of the vampire carrot. Hopefully she wouldn’t be far away, Dawn would be able to do the spell reversal chant and they’d both be ready and human by the time the rescue choppers arrived.

Making her way carefully across the burnt and blacked wreckage of the hut, Dawn went through the remains of the door on the other side of the burnt out area. The corridor here looked relatively undamaged; the door must have held back the fire. There was some smoke damage and of course the place looked as if someone had held an Ikea sale there; but there were no bodies lying on the floor for which Dawn would be eternally grateful.

Pushing her way through the door that led into the canteen, Dawn revised her thoughts about the lack of bodies. The creature must have used the canteen as a central collection point. There were bodies everywhere. Some had been thrown, as if discarded like rubbish, into the corners of the room. Some still hung from the ceiling over piles of earth. From the middle of each pile of earth sprouted several pods like obscenely bloated giant marrows.

Slowly Dawn walked around the room, some of the bodies she recognised; there was Dr Chapman and Wilson, slumped in a heap on the floor was McPherson his face covered with his own blood. Deciding she didn’t want to examine any of the others, Dawn turned away and headed for the door. Just as she was about to push her way through and out into the corridor several thoughts hit her all at once.

First; this couldn’t have all been done by one creature. This didn’t make her feel any better. One creature had been bad enough. More than one was infinitely worse.

Second; Dawn went back into the canteen to check on this; she studied one of the pods careful. It looked like some one, probably in the guise of a large rabbit, had stamped on the pod she was looking at. Dawn moved around the room checking on each of the pods. Every pod had been damaged in some way. One had been cracked wide open and she could see the embryonic plant creature in the pod. Turning away from the last pod, Dawn headed out the door; Faith had obviously fought the creature or creatures and been able to defeat them long enough to destroy their nursery. Time was marching on and it was getting really urgent that she find Faith.

0=0=0=0

Eventually Dawn found Faith asleep in the remains of the vehicle maintenance bay. Dawn’d heard loud snoring from down the corridor, she’d followed the noise to find Faith asleep propped up against the wall with her giant, bunny-paws resting on her giant, distended, bunny-tummy. Around her lay the remains of a large number of plant creatures or at least the bits of plant creature that Bunny-Faith hadn’t eaten.

“Eww,” Dawn said quietly as she picked up and examined what remained of one of the creature’s legs.

Turning the leg in her hands, Dawn gulped when she examined the teeth marks at the end. The hard wood-like substance that must have served the creature for bone was all chewed and frayed. The greenish fleshy parts looked just like a melon did when someone had taken a few big mouthfuls out of it. Dropping the leg back onto the floor, Dawn made her way over to where Bunny-Faith slept, she nudged Faith’s great furry shoulder gingerly.

“Hey, Faith,” Dawn called not really sure if she wanted to wake Bunny-Faith up, “time to get up.”

Wondering whether it was best to let sleeping giant bunnies lie, Dawn stood back and scratched the back of her head.

“Whatever,” Dawn tried again, “HEY! FAITHIE!” she yelled, “Rise and shine!”

This time her call had some effect; Faith blinked open her eyes and looked up sleepily at Dawn. For a moment she looked a little confused then she smiled, sat up, stretched her arms wide and then grabbed hold of Dawn in a big furry bunny embrace. Faith hugged Dawn rather like a small child hugs her favourite teddy, that is, too tightly.

“FAITH!” Came Dawn’s muffled cry from deep between Faith’s furry breasts.

Realising there was something wrong, Faith let go of Dawn but held her at arms length as if checking she was all there. Faith burped loudly into Dawn’s face and then looked slightly embarrassed.

“Eww, Faith,” Dawn waved her hand in front of her face, “talk about vegetable breath.”

Faith hung her head and looked sad, the sad look on her bunny-face pulled at Dawn’s heartstrings.

“Oh its okay,” Dawn relented, “but we’ve got to get you out of here so I can get you back to normal.”

Nodding her head eagerly, Faith climbed to her feet. Taking Faith by one giant paw, Dawn led her back to their room where she could do the reversal spell. As they walked thought the wreckage of the base, Dawn couldn’t help regretting that she’d not brought a camera, Bunny-Faith was rather cute. Not that real Faith wasn’t, but…

0=0=0=0

After spending a couple of minutes stretching and getting used to her body again, Faith inspected herself to check there were no patches of fur left behind.

“Stop that,” Dawn called from the other side of the room, “you’re turning me on.”

“I am?” Faith stopped her self inspection, “I sorta thought that after seeing me like…well, y’know all super-bunny you’d not want to…”

“Don’t be silly,” Dawn grinned and stepped over to Faith; she placed her hands on Faith’s hips and kissed her tenderly on the lips, “there, I still love you and anyway you were kinda cute as Bunny-Faith. Now get dressed before the cavalry turn up. We’ve got enough to explain without you running around naked.”

“Yeah,” Faith started to get dressed as Dawn watched her every movement, “what about that? Do ya really think we should hang around and explain stuff to the cops?”

“Erm,” Dawn hesitated realising Faith had a point, “No, but I don’t see a way around it.”

“Look,” Faith was almost completely dressed by now, “there’s a town south of here, right?”

“Yeah,” Dawn agreed, “but its miles across the peat bogs and what passes for mountains in these parts.”

“Who said anything about walking?” Faith grinned.

“But…” Dawn had all her objections ready and lined up for use; they all melted away under the intensity of one of Faith’s more larcenous smiles. “oh…” Dawn said in a very quiet voice.

0=0=0=0

**Slayer Central, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Cleveland.**

“Buffy?” Willow knocked loudly on the door of Buffy’s chalet.

After knocking and calling for several minutes, Willow was rewarded by having the door opened. The sight that greeted her eyes knocked her back more than a little, Buffy looked awful.

“Buffy?” Willow gave her friend a concerned frown, “Are you okay, coz I gotta say, you look like crap!”

“Whatever,” Buffy turned away from the door and shuffled back into her living room, and called over her shoulder “come in and close the door if you’re coming.”

Stepping through the door into the chalet, Willow grimaced, the air smelt stale with just a hint of garbage left too long in the kitchen bin. Following Buffy into her living room, Willow’s eyes flitted around the room. There were half empty containers of cold curry littering the table top, dirty plates lay piled up in the sink along with cups and glasses. As she walked further into the room her foot kicked something, she looked down to see what she’d hit. An empty vodka bottle lay on the floor. Looking up, Willow saw that Buffy had slumped down into one of her armchairs and was picking at a container of cold rice.

“You sure you’re okay?” Willow asked again as she gestured around the room, “this isn’t like you, Buffy.”

“What?” Buffy looked up from her chair, “Oh, that, I was out late last night I’ve not had a chance to clean up…”

“Or shower,” muttered Willow noting Buffy’s grubby pyjamas and dirty looking hair.

“Yeah,” Buffy gave Willow a hostile look, “like I say I was out late patrolling last night and I haven’t had a chance to clean up…I’ll do it later.”

“Its nearly one o’clock,” Willow pointed out inconveniently, “just how much later…”

“LOOK!” Buffy shouted angrily dropping her container of rice onto the floor, “I said I’d do it later. Now, what do you want?”

“I just came to say,” Willow tried to calm her pounding heart, Buffy’s sudden outburst had really frightened her, “Dawn and Faith will be back tomorrow,” Willow tried to smile as she remembered part of the story Dawn had phoned though to her about their escape. “Apparently they stole an army jeep or something and…”

“Whatever,” Buffy sighed, “was there anything else?”

“Um no,” Willow couldn’t understand how Buffy had changed over the last few weeks; if anything Buffy had been a bit overprotective about Dawn, now she didn’t seem to care.

“Okay then,” Buffy turned and stared out of the window, “close the door on your way out.”

“Okay,” Willow said quietly as she started to feel the tears burn in the corner of her eyes; she turned and headed towards the door but stopped before she was half way there. “I wish you’d talk to Dawn…and Faith. Dawnie’s really worried about you, she still needs her sister.”

“Why?” snapped Buffy turning to face Willow, “She doesn’t need me anymore she’s got Faith.”

Yes, thought Buffy, Faith who’d come into her life once before and tried to steal everything from her, she’d got her little sister now and no one else seemed to see it.

“Of course she needs you,” Willow took a step towards Buffy, “she loves you Buffy, you’re her big sister.”

“Dawn doesn’t love me, not now she’s got her hot slayer slut,” Buffy got up and walked over towards the window ignoring what Willow had said.

“Of course Dawn loves you,” Willow said quietly as she took a couple of tentative steps towards her old friend, “she’s just grown up now, she needs her own space, but she still needs her sister to be there for her.”

“And who’s going to be there for me, eh?” Buffy turned around and glared angrily at Willow, “You’ve all got someone,” Buffy snapped, “you and your rich-bitch girlfriend,” Willow retreated a little as Buffy came slowly towards her, “bet she bought you that dress, huh? What’d have to do for that, WHORE!?”

“BUFFY!” Willow’s hands flew to her mouth as the tears started to trickle down her face, “How can you say things like that?”

“Because they’re true!” Buffy snarled into Willow’s face, “Because you all left me out here with nothing and no one. Where were you when I was feeling lonely and sad? I had to sit there and deal with everything while you and that brat of yours were partying?”

“But, Buffy,” Willow tried once more to put things right, “you only had to say.” Willow tried to think of some solution to this problem some way to make things right again, “We’d have come round to help, we’d have worked something out, we always do and hey, Xander’s love life hasn’t been exactly thrilling this last year, I mean you could always have gone out with him…”

Even as the words were leaving her lips Willow knew that it’d been the wrong thing to say.

“Get out,” Buffy spat the words into Willow’s face.

“I-I’m sorry I didn’t…Aagh!” Willow found herself lying on the floor, her jaw felt numb and there was a nasty iron taste in her mouth. Touching her lip, Willow looked at her hand; there was blood on her fingers. “Y-you hit me!” sobbed Willow as she pushed herself up from the floor.

“And if you don’t get out,” sneered Buffy, “I’ll hit you again.”

Steadying herself with one hand on the wall, Willow fought down the urge to reduce her once best friend to a smouldering grease stain on the carpet.

“Go on Willow,” Buffy taunted her friend, “zap me why don’t you? You know you want to.”

Turning, Willow ran from the chalet the sound of Buffy’s laughter ringing in her ears. As she ran she tried to work out what had gone wrong with her friend.

“It must be a spell,” she told herself, “someone’s cast a spell on Buffy.”

Still running, Willow ran straight into Kennedy’s arms.

“Hey!” Kennedy smiled, “what’s the big rush?” Frowning she noticed Willow’s tear stained cheeks and the blood on her lip, “What happened?”

“Oh that,” Willow took a tissue from up her sleeve and dabbed at her lip, “I-I fell and cut my lip…I’ll be fine, I’ll cast a glamour and no one will notice.”

“You tripped because you couldn’t see where you were going because you were crying?” Kennedy asked suspiciously.

“It’s nothing,” Willow smiled reassuringly, “now, I’ve gotta see Giles, do you know where he is?”

THE END?


End file.
